


Allerleirauh (aka The New Kids on the Block)

by Tawabids



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cussing, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Orgy, Possible Underage depending on where you live (all 16+), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 54,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are six teenagers who have no idea that they used to be superheroes and scientists and gods and assassins. Instead they are high schoolers and footballers, pacifists and delinquents and friends, and they are way too young to deal with the shit that is rising up out of their old lives.</p><p>Based on a kinkmeme prompt that asked for a High School AU where the kids are the real Avengers, deaged, but they don't know it, and beta-read by the amazing so_shhy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/7293.html?thread=14337661#t14337661) in the Avengers kinkmeme. Currently the rating is set to gen, but will likely be increased in future chapters for violence. I will make note of this at the beginning of the relevant chapters.

They'd met in grade school, when Natasha’s family moved from New York to Bangor to try and give their younger daughter a more peaceful environment. They’d chosen Bangor because Dad had been unexpectedly headhunted for a job there. Clint lived next door: when Natasha’s parents found out he had two fathers (and blue-collar ones at that), she was expressly forbidden from speaking to him. For little Natasha, who had never been invited to a birthday party or a sleepover, the temptation was irresistible. She hunted him down the next day at school and demanded he become her best friend. Her family had moved to a bigger house a couple of years later, but Clint and Natasha hadn’t spent more than a week apart since then.

When they were younger Bruce and Clint had been in loads of sports teams together and the three of them had spent every lunch time messing about on the field or sneaking off to get fries from the burger place down the road. Other friends had come and gone, but with the three of them it was different.

The first permanent addition to the gang had been Steve, back in sixth grade. Bruce, Clint and Natasha had been walking to the derby rink across town when they found a gang of big, burly boys in the Worthington High uniform blocking the pedestrian overpass above the motorway. They were shoving a smaller figure back and forth, a boy even shorter than Natasha with a puff of blonde hair and blood trickling from his nose.

Natasha had felt her heart race and a snarl form on her lips as one of the teens hoisted the boy up by his shoulders and tried to set him on the concrete rail of the overpass, thirty feet above a stream of speeding cars and trucks. Natasha heard him yelling, “You like gymnastics so much, Hill? How’s your balance beam? Come on, dance for us!”

Most of the boys started cheering as the smaller kid crouched on top of the railing, trying to get down to safety but pushed back by the wall of muscled bullies. Natasha stepped forward, but it was Bruce who lunged in first – Natasha had never seen him so angry. He was roaring as he shoved the nearest Worthington eighth-grader down. The guy fell hard. Clint and Natasha were close behind, and the older kids were so surprised that they stumbled back until they saw who they were being attacked by.

Clint grabbed the scrawny kid’s hands and helped him down, but the leader of the Worthington thugs launched himself at them with his fists raised. Before he reached them, one of his friends jumped in and grabbed him.

“Hey, bro, forget it,” the intervener soothed. He was a broad-shouldered blond with an ugly rat’s tail down the back of his neck. “They’re just dumb kids. You’ll get suspended, man.”

The leader sneered, but finally brushed his friend’s hands off and turned away. Pulling a few crude gestures and yelling at the younger group, the bullies jogged off. The boy with the rat’s tail paused to glance at their victim, who was wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve, but followed his friends.

“Yeah, you run! You fucking psychopaths!” Clint barked after them.

“Dank you,” the small boy said, holding his nose. “I’m Steve.”

“I’m Natasha, and this is Bruce and Clint,” she shook his hand when he offered it, as Worthington boys were no doubt trained to do. “We’ll take you to your school and find someone. You have to tell them what those jerks were doing!”

“No. I’m alright. Honestly,” Steve mumbled. “My Mom says I should just ignore them. It usually works.”

They’d all gone to the derby together, and started meeting up after school almost every day. Natasha had thought Steve was younger than them, but he turned out to be in their year, and his good sense and cheer balanced out Clint and Natasha’s cynical recklessness well. Most of the time he could even keep up with them on his bike, though he had to stop and use his inhaler quite a lot.

\---

A few weeks later, they’d gone to the movie theatre and found their way blocked by none other than the brawny boy with the blond rat’s tail. He was shifting from foot to foot with his arm’s crossed, watching them until Natasha went up and punched him on the arm.

“Hey!” he grabbed her wrist as she tried to again. “I came here to talk to Steve! Stop that-” he had to grab the other wrist.

“It’s okay, Nat,” Steve touched her shoulder. “Well?”

The boy cleared his throat, glanced around and folded his arms again. “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said at last. He cleared his throat. “For what happened on the overpass. Jim was way out of line.”

“He was way out of line long before he nearly threw Steve off a fucking bridge,” Clint growled.

“I know,” the bigger boy raised his hands. “I made a vow to myself. I’m not going to hang around with them anymore. They’re dickheads.”

Bruce chuckled and raised his eyebrows. “You made a vow?”

“A vow? Like for a wedding?” Clint smirked.

“No! Not like for a wedding!” the boy balled his fists, but then let out a long breath and straightened his back. “Please forgive me, Steve.”

“Already forgiven, Thor,” Steve smiled, patting his elbow, which was the closest place on the taller boy’s body that he could reach. “Hey, wanna come to the movie? You’ve still gotta have someone to hang with and I wouldn’t want you to break your vow.”

“I’d like that,” Thor nodded.

“Thor,” Natasha said dryly. “Really? Your name is _Thor_?”

“His parents are proper hippies,” Steve explained.

Despite his rough entrance, Thor soon became a vital part of the group as easily as Steve had. His lumbering laugh was infectious, and though he was fun to wind up he never held a grudge. Natasha would have picked him as at least a grade above them, but he was only a year older than Steve, who was the youngest of them all. They were all surprised when he turned out to be adopted, like Natasha and Clint.

“But you’ve got four sibs,” Bruce frowned, as they sat on the lawn outside the public library. “Why’d they adopt you as well? No offense.”

“Oh, my parents tried for years before me,” Thor stretched out on his back, his hands behind his head. “Every doctor they spoke to said there was no hope. And then after me, babies began flowing as freely as a river, bam, bam, bam, bam. Dad eventually had to get the snip,” Thor jabbed his thumb at his chest. “I, Bruce, am the greatest fertility aid they know of.”

“Wow, weird,” Steve frowned.

“That’s really not the sound a river makes,” said Natasha.

\---

By eighth grade, their five had become six: Tony was another Worthington student their age, but was so advanced in his schooling that Steve and Thor had never met him until Bruce did two summer school papers with him at the local college. Though the last on board, very soon it was clear that he was the spearhead of the group. He came up with the best ideas for adventures – to cemeteries, abandoned industrial areas, nature reserves, old military bunkers and Palaeolithic sites. He could talk his way into restricted films and a couple of years later he introduced the crew to his parents’ unlocked liquor cabinet. He was the first to get a girlfriend, the first to pass his driver’s license, the first to attempt a beard (a dismal but admirable failure). At fourteen he was contracted to write software for biotech companies and this year, sophomore year for the rest of the them, he had already graduated high school and was making noise about starting his own business. He had been taking the whiteware at his home apart since he could walk and he wanted to make use of his love of gadgets.

His indulgent parents – soaring in marketing and PR careers they managed over the net – had put their foot down at last. If Tony came to them with a convincing proposal after he turned eighteen, they would think about raising him capital. But that was more than a year away, and the group hadn’t seen much evidence of Tony’s plan of attack yet. Freed of the shackles of school, he spent his days pottering around in the garage under his house that served as his computer lab and workshop.

Sometimes he would turn up at Pym High during lunch to talk computers with Bruce, sometimes to shoot hoops with Clint. Other times he was after Natasha, to mull over something on his mind – more than once they had sat alone on the steps of the library or on the dirt space behind the gym and worried about Bruce’s worsening insomnia, or Steve being bullied, or whether the group should help out when one of Clint’s dads lost his job. Occasionally it turned into complaints about the fact that Clint’s dire work ethic or bitching about Thor’s clueless self-body-worship in front of Steve. But there was an understanding between them that these discussions would never get back to the others. 

Sometimes she thought the group was Tony’s pet project, the ultimate machine for him to tinker with and improve. Other times she was sure he just really loved having friends. 

Natasha knew what that was like.

 

\---


	2. Natasha

Natasha dreamed in Russian and woke up in a strange room. She tensed, eyes scanning the blank walls and the unfamiliar curtains. The roof was low and slanted, the window small and high above her, hard to climb through without a vaulting point. Only one metre to the door, but there was an open bag spewing its contents in to the shadows between her and the exit. Then her brain ground into gear and she rolled over and tightened the blankets around her shoulders. Not a strange room after all. 

She was still in Bangor. The same town where she'd spent her entire sixteen years of life. One of the lowest crime rates in the country - and one of the most boring cities in the world, in Natasha's opinion. On top of that, it was a Monday, and according to the clock by her bed she had to be at school in an hour. 

No point trying to go back to sleep. She pushed back the covers, the winter air sending goosebumps down her legs. Most of her clothes were still in the bag on the floor, so she pulled on yesterday's T-shirt and a woollen cardigan, thinking that it wasn't a surprise she hadn't remembered where she was. Her room at her old house - the house she'd been raised in, though she'd never call it a home - was mostly empty now. Mom and big sister Haley were gone, living at Grandma Barbara's in New Jersey. Dad was so messed up he could barely look after himself, and every time Nat went round to the house there was nothing but beer in the fridge and dishes in the sink. But Natasha had argued and raged and physically refused to leave this stupid, boring little town for New Jersey. She couldn't. Her friends were here. Clint was here. She couldn't just go.

Somehow, the story had got back to Maria Hill and Maria had said Natasha could move in with her and Steve. It had come completely out of the blue: Natasha had never got on with Steve's mom before then, and she still didn't understand how a single woman as hard-bitten and unaffectionate as Maria had produced someone as nice as Steve. That was genetics for you. But she respected Maria enough not to dismiss the option, and accepted it thankfully when she found it was the only one she had. Clint's family didn't have the room or the money to take her in, Bruce's parents had said they had too much to cope with right now, Natasha didn't have the patience to live with Thor in his vegetarian home with four younger siblings, and Tony's house was too far across town for her to get to school on her own. So last month she had moved in with Maria and Steve in their cosy two-level terrace house.

Thing was, after a few days she realised she loved living with Maria and Steve. Maria didn't give her rules to follow, didn't mind if Natasha spent all evening hiding in her room, and she spoke to Natasha like an adult. Most of all it was good to get away from Mom and Dad. Away from the fighting. Away from constant reminders - no matter how they tried to hide it - that the divorce was Natasha's fault. She wasn't their _real_ kid like Haley. She was their charity kid, the one they'd adopted because God said they should. The one who'd been born broken, who'd spent most of her childhood in therapy for violence and anti-social tenancies. Natasha didn't need to hear them talking when they thought she'd gone to bed to know that she was a hateful, lying, blasphemous child who no amount of prayer or therapy would fix.

\---

Pulling on thick socks, she headed downstairs for breakfast. Maria was already dressed and about to leave for the military base where she worked.

"Sleep alright?" Maria asked as Natasha filled a bowl to the brim with bran flakes.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. Since she'd moved in Maria had encouraged her to eat her greens and do her homework, but never inquired as to her wellbeing. When Natasha didn't answer, Maria shrugged, "You were talking in your sleep. It didn't sound like English."

Natasha sat down at the table and sluiced milk over her cereal. "I was probably talking in tongues," she muttered.

"I'm sure that was it," Maria said. She picked up her bag and headed to the door. "Steve's not down yet, make sure he's out of bed before you leave."

Natasha nodded and pulled the newspaper closer. Headline: Aging Sewer Line Threatens Canoe Race. Wow. Thrilling.

After breakfast she headed upstairs to the bathroom to pull her hair into a severe ponytail and layer on the eyeliner. It was a pain to touch up during the day, but by God it used to piss off Mom, and that was the most fun Natasha got when she’d been living with her parents. 

The door of the second bedroom was still closed. Natasha knocked on it. "Steve, get out of bed."

"I'm up," came the voice from within, which was going through a wobbly stage as it dropped another half-octave. He sounded a bit embarrassed, so Natasha barged inside.

Steve's bag was packed and sitting on the bed. Natasha’s coed public school, Pym Secondary, didn’t have a uniform except for sports, but Steve was dressed from the waist upwards in the shirt, tie and red school blazer of Worthington Combined Boy's High School. Below that he was wearing nothing but his boxers. Natasha wasn't embarrassed, even though Steve these days was not the same tiny string-bean she'd met five years ago. "Isn't your bus leaving in five minutes, sport?"

"I can't get these on," Steve murmured, holding up his pants in one meaty fist. His cheeks pinked. "I can't do them up."

"You're serious," Natasha drawled.

"Sarcasm isn't helping!"

"Well what am I supposed to do?" Natasha shrugged. "It's not like you're going to fit any of mine."

"These are my third pair this year," Steve sighed, dumping the pants on his bed. "They fit fine on Friday. How did I grow out of them in two days?" He pulled open his top drawer, mournfully sticking out his lower lip. He rummaged until he found a pair of loose sports shorts.

"You'll freeze," Natasha pointed out.

"I'll cope," Steve finished dressing and grabbed his bag. "Are you coming to the tryouts this afternoon?"

The group often met up after Thor’s weekly football practise because the field was conveniently close to town, but Natasha hadn't really planned anything today. She hadn't even known they were doing tryouts. Now she thought about it she was pretty sure Thor had been harping on about it for weeks. Steve was looking at her quite earnestly as he waited for her answer, but 'earnest' was Steve's default face so she just shrugged. "Maybe."

\---

They separated at the gate. Natasha could see Steve's bus in the distance. He was already sprinting for the stop and she thought he'd make it. As she turned onto the main road and headed downtown, the well-tended gardens disappeared and the houses got smaller and more cramped. Four blocks later she could see Clint sitting on a circuit box at the corner. He raised his hand as she approached.

"We're going the long way. Via Bruce's house."

"Why?" Natasha frowned, checking her watch. They were already pushing it for time.

"To pick up Bruce."

"No duh, bonehead, but why?"

"Because no fucking reason," Clint grinned. "Come on. Tell me about your weekend."

He already knew about her weekend, of course, since she had spent most of it at his house. Clint was Natasha's oldest friend; during some of that time he'd been her only one. She just didn't like kids that much, even when she'd been one herself. But Clint was just better than everyone else. Obviously.

No one was outside when they reached Bruce’s house. Natasha looked at her watch again. No way were they going to make first period. Oh well. It wouldn’t do any harm, but on the other hand, Bruce was now in the honours class a year ahead of them, so she didn’t want to encourage the habit.

“Hi, kids,” Bruce’s mom answered the door. “You should probably get going, I don’t know that-”

“I’m fine.” Bruce jogged down the stairs, pulling on a sweater. “Mom? Where’s my bag?”

“You still don’t look well, sweetie,” his mother picked up the backpack off the floor, “I can call the school and you can stay in bed.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Bruce grabbed his bag and kissed his mother on the cheek. Natasha watched him closely as he greeted Clint with a fistbump and followed them outside. His skin was pale, and there was a hunch in his posture that wasn’t usual.

“You haven’t got the flu or something, have you?” Natasha asked as they walked. “’cos I am not getting the flu while I’m stuck with only Maria to look after me.”

“Aw, Steve’d nurse you back to health,” Clint sniggered.

“No, uh, um, a bit of food poisoning over the weekend,” Bruce answered her. Natasha had never heard somebody lie so badly. He changed the subject quickly. “How’s it going at Steve’s, anyway?”

Natasha filled them in on Maria's cupboard full of nothing but bran and protein shakes, and the weird hours the woman kept. Bruce seemed to perk up a bit as they walked. It had been a while since they’d spent time with just the three of them. She loved the others, of course she did, but sometimes fewer felt easier to balance.


	3. Clint

Natasha seemed agitated about missing twenty minutes of first period. Clint didn’t get why. It was only biology. His thoughts were on Bruce anyway, as he took a seat by the window and watched their friend jog off to his advanced class in – well, Clint couldn’t keep track of what Bruce was absorbing with his big Bruce brain. Hell, he couldn’t even fucking pronounce half of it.

“Mr Taylor,” their biology professor slammed a huge tome onto Clint’s desk to get his attention. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a textbook, Mrs Tian,” Clint said, entwining his fingers on the desk in front of him. Most of the class was busy making oxygen-foam fountains out of their crushed liver and hydrogen peroxide, but a few glanced in his direction. He refused to make eye contact, even with Natasha, who he was pretty sure was glaring at him.

“It’s _your_ textbook, Clint,” Mrs Tian narrowed her eyes. “It hasn’t left this classroom since it was issued to you at the beginning of the year, even though I’ve assigned this class a chapter to read every week since then.”

“Well, y’know, you gotta keep up with technology and I’ve got the whole book downloaded onto my phone-” Clint flinched as Mrs Tian lifted the textbook over her right shoulder as if preparing to whack him around the head with it. She wouldn’t, of course; she was actually a pretty fun teacher most of the time, and her regular threats of violence against the class were always treated as a joke. Still, Clint had seen Natasha twitch out of the corner of his eye. 

Mrs Tian dumped the book on her desk.

“Clint, I don’t know what you _think_ you know, but you are going to struggle with the final exam if you don’t get your act together,” she shook her head, and lowered her voice so the rest of the class wasn’t privy to any more of the conversation. “I know the senior admin has sent a letter to your parents, but you have to be the one who makes the change. You can’t afford to fail this class. They will not hesitate to hold you back a year if you do.”

Clint had heard that warning so many times before that his mind tended to skim right over it. But there was genuine concern in Mrs Tian’s voice. Dammit, Clint hated when adults tried to care about him. Neither Dad nor Poppa had finished high school, and it had never done them any harm.

“What did your dads say when they got that letter?” Natasha asked as they walked to their next class, which was algebra.

Clint shrugged. “They were pretty fucking pissed. They said I wasn’t allowed to leave the house after school until I’d done my homework, but they’ve both had day shifts all this week so it’s not like they knew.”

“You idiot, why didn’t you just tell me? I could’ve come over and done it with you.”

“Why?” Clint rolled his eyes, speeding up his paces. “Why do I care about knowing the evolutionary history of primates or the effects of the gulf wars? Why does that matter?”

“I don’t get you,” Natasha hurried to catch up with him. She had the closed-in look on her face that she wore when she was getting frustrated with her own emotions (because she hated admitting she had them). “What do you want in life, Clint? How do you think you’re going to get it if you don’t work for it?”

“Nothing!” Clint turned and swaggered backwards into their algebra classroom. He pressed two fingers to his lips and blew Natasha a kiss. “I don’t want anything! I’m happy! Oh fuck-”

A solid body hit his back and he stumbled as he twisted around. He’d walked straight into the man standing at the front of the class, a diminutive guy in a suit who definitely wasn’t their algebra teacher. “Shit, sorry,” Clint grinned, and then realised who he was looking at. “Hey, Mr Coulson! Long time no see!”

“Indeed, Mr Taylor. Please sit down. Welcome to you too, Natasha,” Mr Coulson pointed towards the few remaining seats in the class. He leaned against the desk at the front and crossed his arms, sweeping his gaze over the hushed students. “So I’m sure you can guess from my presence that Mr Porter is away today.”

Poor Mr Porter was having “back problems” a lot this year. Pretty much every student in his classes knew it was actually a marital breakdown. Mr Coulson had turned up a few months ago as their substitute and no one had complained about the gaps in the curriculum since. He might look like the bald, peppery-grey manager of a used car yard, but he knew how to make the lessons interesting. Oddly enough though, he didn’t seem to know a lot of algebra.

“Alright, kids,” Mr Coulson pushed away from his desk and started handing out a pile of paper. “Get into groups of four or five. Push your desk together. Come on, this could take all period.”

The class got up and obligingly dragged their desks into groups. Natasha and Clint managed to find a pair of lonely classmates to join up with.

“What is this, sir?” someone asked as they took their papers.

“It’s a leadership aptitude test. Last year’s version. They give it to top of the line military cadets,” Mr Coulson told them. “Now I want you all to do the first three questions and discuss them in groups. One of you write the answers down. Alright? Go to it.”

The class pulled out notepads and pencil cases, chatter rising quickly to block out anything more that Mr Coulson could say. One of Clint and Natasha’s partners clicked their pen and put it to paper. When no one else started doing anything, Natasha dragged the question closer and started reading it aloud.

Before they could even get to the second paragraph Clint looked up to see their teacher approaching across the disordered room. He elbowed Natasha and she stopped reading.

“I just want a quick word with Natasha and Clint, then you can all get back to the exercise,” Mr Coulson said.

“What is it, sir?” Natasha pushed her papers across the cluster of tables.

“You’re both friends with Bruce, right? Bruce Graystone?” Mr Coulson crouched down so he wasn’t looming over them. “I took his AP statistics class this morning. Has he talked to you much about how he’s feeling?”

“He’s got food poisoning,” Natasha wrinkled her nose. “I’m willing to bet he feels like shit.”

“I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble,” Mr Coulson insisted in a low voice. “I just need to know someone’s looking out for my students. If you or Bruce are worried about anything, you can talk to me.”

Natasha and Clint both stared at him silently in response. This was usually an effective way to make grown-ups disappear. Adults, like toddlers, needed constant validation or they would give up and find something easier to do. Mr Coulson, unfortunately, simply waited with a bland smile on his face. When it was clear that neither of the teens were going to tell him anything more about Bruce, he changed tack. “I heard that Mr Roberts is organising an archery course on Thursday afternoons. Either of you going to join it?”

“I don’t do sports,” Natasha said.

“Why’s that, Natasha?”

“My therapist recommend organised sports to help me channel my aggression,” she explained. “Once.”

Mr Coulson opened his mouth and turned to Clint, but Clint was already answering, “I don’t touch weapons.”

“Why not? You’ve got the build for archery.”

“My fathers are pacifists. Won’t even let me watch football.”

“I see,” smiled Mr Coulson. He stood up. “Well, good talking to you both. Let me know how Bruce recovers from his… food poisoning.”

Clint hissed, “Fuck violence!” as he walked away. Natasha slapped him, laughing.

“You’re such a jerk.”

“What? It’s all true!”

“Your poppa isn’t going to care about you doing some harmless extra-curricular,” Natasha rolled her eyes. “And I’ve watched football with your family plenty of times.”

“I’m not going to take up some stupid, geek sport on the advice of a sober-suited, son-of-a-bitch math teacher,” Clint threw his hands up. “What would that do for my reputation?”

“Alright, can we do this exercise now?” one of their partners grumbled. 

Clint pulled the paper over and started checking off the multi-choice answers. Natasha watched with a frown, stopping to correct him only once. The two other students just stared until he pushed the paper back to them. “There.”

“Are you just making this up?” the other girl demanded.

“No,” Clint frowned. “It’s easy. Isn’t it, Nat?”

“Yeah, those are the answers I would have put,” Natasha agreed, checking her nails. “Go get it marked if you don’t believe us.”

The girl got up and took their sheet to Mr Coulson, who was sitting at the teacher’s desk texting on his cellphone. She waited with her hands behind his back while he hid his phone and went through the answers against a checklist. The rest of the groups were still arguing over the first section of the paper. 

At last Mr Coulson smiled – Clint could never tell what any of his smiles meant, as they seemed to range from ‘congratulations on the Yale scholarship’ to ‘I just reported your drug ring to the principle’ – but he guessed the answer by their partner’s annoyed expression as she brought the test back to the table. She tossed it down in front of them. “Perfect score,” she sneered, folding her arms. “I suppose you just downloaded the answers from the military’s website. Way to ruin it for the rest of us.”

Clint folded his hands behind his head and stuck his tongue out at her. He would’ve said something rude about the fact that her older sister wrote her English essays for her, but he was feeling a little confused himself. The test hadn’t been that hard, had it? The answers were just obvious. 

\---

They found Bruce after last period. He was looking much better than he had that morning, his colour rosy and his conversation bubbly. He couldn’t stop talking about a new formula describing electron energy transfer in – ionising radiation? Clint _really_ didn’t get the difference between that and regular radiation that came out of the microwave, so he just let Bruce revel in his science. One time he’d asked Bruce why food didn’t make your hair fall out when you zapped it in the microwave and Bruce had given him his look full of despair like Clint was a terminal patient who’d just asked how his retirement fund was doing.

These days Clint just kept Bruce talking about this sort of thing so Bruce didn’t realise what an intellectual tragedy he was. It made his friend happy, and every now and then Clint felt like he was absorbing enough Bruce-ness to pass his exams. Keeping Bruce's enormous mind occupied was one of the great things about having Tony around, because the scientific barrage could be exhausting at times. It was also one of the awful things about having Tony about, because Clint was happy to admit (to Natasha, at least) that he was totally jealous of the cheeky fucker and his genius mind. But Clint was a big boy. And Tony made Bruce happy. Course of action: duh.

They could have walked to Thor’s football practise, but nah, walking was for squares, so they took the bus. Natasha told Bruce about how Mr Coulson had asked after his health and Bruce went very quiet for a couple of minutes, and Clint kicked her, but then Bruce started making straight-faced claims about all the absurd things he would confess to Mr Coulson if he were the counsellor and before long Clint was in stitches and Natasha had her face pressed into her lap she was laughing so hard.

They got off the bus, slung their bags onto their backs and strode through the open back gates of Worthington High. A few late-leaving seniors stared as they passed, but Clint thought they were probably just watching Natasha’s ass. He shot them his best ‘dysfunctional public-school boy’ grins over his shoulder, just in case. 

The main field was around the side of the school, and they found seats on the near empty bleachers, Natasha sitting between the two boys. Thor was out on the field beside the coach and the captain. The latter would be graduating at the end of the year and Thor had no fear about his place in the team. According to Steve, who was good at keeping track of the Worthington social scene despite not being in it, and Tony, who just knew too much in general, there were strong expectations that Thor would take the captain's mantle next year. Clint would believe that when he saw it: Thor was still a year younger than most of the team. But also half a head taller, so who knew?

A few admirers from the girls’ school down the road were sitting close by, and when they glanced over Clint gave them the same dysfunctional smile he'd given the boys, but with just a _hint_ of the bad boy in it. It worked every time. One of them immediately straightened her back and another went for the lipgloss, but before Clint saw more than that, Natasha made a hocking noise in her throat.

“Ugh, look at them,” she stuck out her tongue. “Don’t they have anything better to do than hang around and ogle these meatheads?”

Cliff raised an eyebrow at her, “Isn’t that what _we’re_ here for?”

“As if it's the same,” she slumped back on the bleachers. Her eyes widened as she glanced across the line of new recruits hoping for a seat on next season’s benches. Natasha pointed, “That’s Steve!”

“You’re damn right it is,” Bruce gasped, sitting up sharply.

“Whoo! Fuck yeah, Steve Hill!” Clint bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth. Steve looked over and even from this distance, Clint would swear he saw him blush and start shifting from foot to foot. Bless his little soul.

“No wonder he seemed so eager for us to come today,” Natasha said.

On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t their presence that was making Steve nervous. The guy next to him, a stocky redhead with veins popping in his neck, was bumping into him way too often as they stood in line and listened to the coach run through the agenda. While the coach was directing Thor, the team captain and a couple of other veterans to finish setting up the tyres, several boys leaned forward one by one to speak in Steve’s direction. Steve’s shoulders drooped lower. Clint didn’t remember the names and faces of every bully he and Natasha had rescued Steve from in the past five years, but he’d be willing to bet his family mortgage that some of them were standing in that line-up.

“He’s gonna clean up,” Bruce said brightly, and then glanced at Natasha. “He is, right? I mean, look at him. He’s barely recognisable from the kid he was last year.”

“I’m sure he’ll do great,” Natasha growled.

“Alright lads,” the coach roared, “We’ll start with some linemen drills. You five on the end, you play offensive; you four get in as the defensive line. Not all spread out like that, I want you all in shoulder to shoulder.”

Steve was in the latter group, along with two of the boys who’d been heckling him. Clint clicked his knuckles and tried to tell his heart to slow down a bit. Steve wouldn’t let those fucking asswipes bring him down. Steve bounced back from everything.

He ended up right in the middle of the scrimmage, with his two tormentors on either side. There were at least a couple more in the offensive line, Clint realised now. But that wouldn’t matter. Once they were all grunting and huffing they wouldn’t have the oxygen to spare for insults. But then Clint shot to his feet and shaded his eyes with his hand.

“What?” Natasha demanded.

There was just something about the angle the two boys on either side of Steve were standing on, and the smiles they were trading with their opponents opposite. “Bastards,” Clint scuffed his shoe on the fresh paint of the bleacher. He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he could see it in the boys’ body language. “I think the three on the offensive side are gonna all back each other up against Steve, and their friends on defensive will let it happen.”

“The coach will see that-“ Bruce said.

“Not from the angle he’s standing on, it’ll just look like Steve can’t hold his own,” Clint gritted his teeth as the whistle blew and the boys charged in to lock chests to chests. Sure enough, it was pretty clear that Steve was facing three times the opposition of the guy on the end, the only defensive lineman who wasn’t in on the prank. And then-

“Oh, wow,” Bruce stood up, his mouth hanging open. Natasha got to her feet too.

Steve was pushing right ahead. It was becoming abundantly clear that he had three muscled guys digging their heels in against him, and he was just… pushing them back like they were five-year-olds. Their boots were ripping up turf, their arms bulging, their faces red and slick with sweat, their teeth bared - and Steve did even look like he was out of breath. 

The coach blew the whistle and both sides sprang apart. For a moment there was silence, and then the call came for another nine applicants to switch in and the spell was broken. Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Thor, the team captain and even the cluster from the girls’ school all cheered and clapped as loud as they possibly could as Steve jogged back to the waiting line.

After that there was no stopping him. He aced the next round of linemen drills as well, and the next, and the catching exercises, and the straight sprints. He was a little less coordinated on the tyre drills, but hey, the guy had sprouted like a weed and it had to take more than a few months to get used to a body that size.

“Hell yeah, Steve!” Clint pumped his fist, practically bouncing up and down. “That’ll learn the fuckers! You gonna be giving it to all their bitches tonight!”

“Clint!” Natasha was sitting down again and she punched him on thigh. Quite hard. “Don’t be such a pig.”

“Oh, Christ, like you’re not a dearly beloved misogynist,” Clint snapped back, still grinning out over the field.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

There was a tone in her voice that made Clint turn around properly. He spread his arms. “Come on, Nat, you know what I mean. Name one woman you’ve said one nice thing about in the last two years. And every time someone comes onto me you’re practically pissing on me to mark your territory-”

Oh. Shit. Clint had really not meant to say any of that. It was a joke, right? Natasha would know that was a joke. She didn’t reply. Maybe he’d got lucky. She didn’t even look like it was taking her effort to look back across the field, and the grass didn’t catch fire or anything under her gaze. He’d expected her to at least shove him off the bleachers. Maybe she was changing as much as Steve.

“Sorry, Nat,” Clint said, still standing up and trying to figure out if that was awkward or if it would be worse to sit down.

“It’s fine,” she looked up at him. It wasn’t even sarcasm when she added, “just tell me if it bothers you. It’s not like you’ll have trouble finding someone else to jerk you off when you’re too lazy to find your fleshlight.”

“Wait,” Bruce asked before either of them could draw the not-argument out any longer. He looked between them. “Are you – did you two – like – do it? With each other?” 

Clint and Natasha’s eyes met in mutual shock.

“Yeah, a few times,” Clint muttered at last.

“It wasn’t like a pre-arranged thing,” Natasha added hurriedly, scratching her nose. “We were just bored.”

“It’s not like we’re dating or anything.”

“No, it was just—“

“Casual,” Clint finished.

“I was gonna say ‘convenient’,” Natasha amended.

Bruce ducked his head. “Well, yeah, fair enough,” he sounded more hurt than surprised. 

Thor jogged over before any of them could find a way to end the silence, and Bruce was laughing again as he got up to hug him. Thor grinned at them all, looking back over his shoulder as Steve followed at a more sedate pace. He was still pink in the cheeks, but whether from exertion or self-consciousness, Clint couldn’t tell.

“Wasn’t he fantastic?” Thor boomed, waving his hand at Steve. “It took me all week to convince him to come, but I knew he’d kick all of the ass.”

“So he’s in the team?” Natasha asked.

“Well, coach says we’ll all have to wait a couple of days for the final list, but I’m calling blackmail if he’s not,” Thor beamed, beckoning Steve to hurry up.

“Hey man, what’s this?” Bruce asked, reaching up to jab his thumb against Thor’s chin. “You got a bit of mould growing here.”

“Shut it!” Thor laughed, ducking away from Bruce’s hand. “I’m working on it!”

“That’s Thor’s soul patch,” Clint winked at Bruce.

“It’s not a soul patch, it’s the seed of a mighty forest!”

“You haven’t seen it before, Bruce?”

“Haven’t seen Thor in ages, I guess,” Bruce muttered, smile faltering. No, he hadn’t, Clint realised. He’d been to Bruce’s house a couple of times in the last fortnight, but he hadn’t seen Bruce out socializing for at least that long. Clint had just assumed he was with Tony or the Worthington boys when Clint and Natasha weren’t around, but it occurred to him that he would have heard about it if that was the case.

Steve reached the bleachers at last, and went in for a hug from Natasha, who was closest. She put her arms round him – they didn’t even go right round his trunk, fucking hell he'd put on weight like he was being paid per ounce – and then dodged away as she realised how sweaty he was.

“You were amazing out there, Steve,” Clint beamed.

“You were a tank,” Natasha added.

Steve was still hunched over, but smiling proudly. “I didn’t know I could do any of that.”

There was a chorus of wild praise, the sort that Greek heroes would have been proud to receive. “A drink!” Thor clapped his hands, “We need to go into town and get coffee right now.”

Steve shuffled and mumbled that he needed to head home and get a change of clothes, but Bruce pulled out a spare shirt and jeans from his bag, which was promptly followed by demands for Steve to get his kit off right there and then. He put his foot down there (and somehow that was more heartening than watching him on the field, knowing he was still tiny Steve who stood up for his principals no matter who he had to fight) but relented to climb down under the benches and switch clothes there. Thor had only just texted Tony to see if he was free to join them when Clint felt his phone go off in his pocket.

As he was pulling it out, he saw Natasha reaching into her bag for hers, and heard Thor’s R&B ringtone going off as well. Bruce was just frowning and checking his own mobile as Clint read the message on his screen: ‘New Msg: Tony Alvarez: GET IN MY CAR DUDE BRING UR FRIENDS’.

“Since when does Tony have a car?” Steve called from under the bleachers.

“Fucker’s been keeping secrets from us again,” Clint sniggered.

A second mass text followed close on the heels of the first: ‘YEAH THOR I KNOW UR AT THE FIELD NOW GET IN MY CAR. BACK GATE. MOVE IT.’  
   
“Jesus, buy some lowercase,” Natasha muttered.

“Well?” Steve reappeared around the edge of the stands. “Are we going to keep him waiting?”

\---

Tony wasn’t outside the gate. He must have been just down the road watching them from a distance, probably with an electronic zoom camera attached to his fucking windshield if Clint knew anything about Tony. As they looked around hopefully, there was a rising growl and then the shriek of tyres as a solid black jeep executed a tight handbrake turn and skidded to a halt in front of them, facing the wrong way along the road. For a moment it sat rumbling and winking at them in the sunlight, and then the driver’s window opened. Tony took off his sunglasses and put his elbow on the window.

“Lady and gents,” he drawled, “I have arrived.”

“Fucking hell, Tony!” Clint ran his hand over the hood. The car was a five year old model, but its classic military chassis looked like new. Bruce was walking around the car with his jaw hanging open while Natasha leaned in through the window for Tony to kiss her on the cheek.

“This is really yours?” Steve asked skeptically.

“No, it’s my boyfriend’s. Of course it’s mine, just put the deposit down this morning. I picked it over a mommy van though, so someone’s gonna have to sit on a knee,” he jabbed his thumb at Natasha, “Beauty, you're on Steve’s lap. No, you’re right,” he clicked his fingers, “he’s excitable. Get on Clint’s lap.”

“I’ll just lie on the roof and luxuriate,” Clint groaned in mock ecstasy, pressing his cheek to the engine-warmed hood.

“I’m not,” Steve whined, climbing into the middle seat while Bruce jumped in the far side and Thor took the passenger spot, “ _excitable_.”

“Tiger, you lose blood to your brain when you see knees. Clint! Stop fellating my new paintwork!” Tony pressed down on the horn until Clint reluctantly peeled himself off the front of the car and got in. Natasha had been holding the door open for him, and she climbed in after, settling herself well forward on his lap. Was she still mad at him? He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into his chest, but she didn’t take the bait, just reached back over her shoulder and pinched his ear hard enough to smart. He could practically feel her rolling her eyes. Steve, whose leg was pressed thigh to thigh with Clint’s, shifted a little. Clint suddenly wished he could see Bruce from where he sat, but Steve’s bulk blocked his view completely.

“Oi,” Tony adjusted the rearview mirror to look at them, “seatbelts.”

“Yes, sir,” Natasha replied, and they found the belt just stretched round both her and Clint. Tony hit the stereo and some old Editors rock pulsed through the cabin as he pulled away from the curb.

Tony was driving way too fucking fast, Clint thought, even before they hit the motorway. It wouldn't bother him - he really, really loved the feel of this car - except that he could tell Tony was doing it to show off rather than for the thrill of it. The buildings whipped past and shrunk down until they were inside the forest, snow-dusted and black in the thickets. Clint wound down the window to smell the pine and the ice, even though it meant Natasha's hair was getting all over his face. 

"Where are we going?" Steve called.

"Where do you wanna go?" Tony glanced back for half a second. "Huh? Wherever you want, buddy. New York, Quebec, Nova Scotia, you name it. Let's go there right now."

Thor's deep laugh rolled over the sound of the wind in Clint's ears. Bruce called, "Steve promised to buy us all coffee."

"If you can find me a place that'll give us six coffees for the shrapnel in my wallet," Steve countered.

"Four coffees," Thor said over his shoulder. "Tony buys his own, I'll buy Steve a coffee and a bagel."

"I don't think I've even got enough for four," Steve complained. 

"Three coffees, Tony buys for him and Bruce, the rest as above."

"I can buy my own," Bruce cut in.

Thor unbuckled his seatbelt to turn right around, "Hush, Bruce, I'm trying to find a way for nobody to feel indebted."

That stung a bit. Clint wrinkled his nose, because he and Natasha probably had enough between them to buy their own drinks. Whatever, he'll take what they're willing to give and fuck obligations. You don't have to owe friends. 

"Quebec is still an option," Tony called. "I'm serious. I rerouted the app my parents have tapped to my phone's GPS. It's tracking the one on our cat's microchip now."

"Save it for the next term break, Tony," Natasha told him. "Turn this thing around."

\---

Within an hour they were all sitting around in one of the tiny vegan cafes that Thor always insisted on, and Clint had completely forgotten his annoyance. Natasha had bought him a drink in the end (claiming she owed him one, which he was pretty sure she didn't) and they were crowded around the only table left, shoulder to shoulder, with Steve and Bruce on either side of him. Bruce and Tony had just found out Thor had named his motorcycle (a 2010 Honda in constant need of repair, which Thor adored nevertheless because it had been a gift from his grandfather) "Tanngrisnir", after a goat that pulled his namesake's chariot in Norse myth. No force on earth could have stopped them ripping the shit out of Thor for this. He was holding his own, to be fair, arguing valiantly about how cool that word would look painted across his exhaust pipe with some lightning bolts to complete the theme.

"Thor, my man, my brother, you know I love you, but between this and the bum fluff on your chin I am beginning to think we are living in alternate dimensions of cool," Tony groaned.

"I will bet you ten bucks that Steve agrees with me," Thor slapped his hand down on the table.

"No, see, that's a ridiculous prediction, you know why? Because Steve doesn't know what constructive criticism is, alright, he couldn't tell Satan to turn down the heat a bit without at least making it sounds like a compliment."

Steve bristled, "How did this turn into a judgement of my character _again_?"

"Steve, shush, I'm practicing politics. Thor, I will bet you twenty bucks that everyone else at this table is on my side. Okay, who likes Thor's heavy metal milkmaid name?"

Steve and Thor both raised their hands.

Tony pointed at Thor's chest, "And who is going to call Thor's mighty steed the goatbike from this day forth?"

Everyone else raised their hands.

"See, victory by popular opinion. I owe you ten, you owe me twenty, I'll take the difference by cash or bank transfer."

Thor threw up his hands, nearly whacking Natasha in the head. "I'm not giving you ten bucks because you managed to humiliate me!"

"Really? Because I always thought the whole point of bets was to add insult to injury," Tony grinned and took a sip of his coffee.

“I changed my mind,” said Natasha, pulling slices of salmon out of Steve’s bagel. “I like the goatbike. It’s daring. The rest of us should be more daring. That makes it three for three.”

“You can’t change your vote,” Tony leaned across the table, gesticulating wildly now. “The vote’s been cast. You’re skewing the system if you manipulate the numbers after the fact.”

“Yup, politician, you’re on the mark,” Bruce chuckled.

“Thank you Bruce, now let me-”

Tony stopped and stared off into space, one hand still half-curled as he pointed at Natasha. He pulled out his phone and looked at something on the screen.

“Yeah? You’ll what?” Steve prompted.

“Sorry, I gotta,” Tony stood up from the table, still staring at his phone. “I gotta take this.”

“That’s an email,” Bruce frowned. “You have to take an email?”

“Yeah, it’s,” Tony stumbled over Thor’s bag as he tried to back away without looking, “a work thing. Give me a minute. Keep talking.”

Steve frowned at Bruce. “I thought he finished the Roche contract last month.”

Bruce shrugged, but Thor nodded, “I thought he had too. He said he was working on his plan.”

Since his parents had put their foot down, talk of the business had been kind of quiet, but sometimes Tony didn’t answer his phone for days so they’d all assumed he was working hard on it.

Clint got off his chair and took a couple of steps towards Tony. The others were trying to get the conversation going again. Tony was dialling a number and saying his name to someone at the other end. He listened for what had to be a record length of time, and then said, “No, see, because it was mine.”

More listening. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I already gave you evidence of that.”

And a moment later, in a more professional tone. “Well who can I contact?”

Tony raised his gaze and met Clint’s eyes, and Clint turned and went back to the table. If it was important, Tony would tell the group.

Natasha was watching him as he sat down. Thor and Steve were having an argument over her head about how many people Thor could fit on his goatbike, with Steve firmly in the safety-first camp. Natasha didn’t speak, but one eyebrow gave the slightest twitch. Clint shook his head, put his elbows on the table and asked Thor how many cycle helmets he could get his hands on.


	4. Tony

“Can I take the jeep for a spin?” Clint asked, bending over the algae battery that Tony was incubating on the back bench.

“Nope. You touch that, I’ll take your eye,” Tony twisted his stool around and jabbed his screwdriver at him. Clint leaned in closer, his compact back muscles twitching. Dammit, Tony hated when his friends wore tight shirts. Especially in the workshop. He was constantly fighting to keep distractions out of the workshop. It was just the converted garage under his parents’ house, sure, but Tony was determined to make it a perfect haven for his mind.

It was Wednesday, two days since the coffee shop. Natasha and Clint had been in his house uninvited for the last four hours. Outside the rain was bucketing down, and Tony knew he was going to get guilted into driving them both home, but he couldn’t for the life of him bear to do it yet.

“What is it?”

“It’s a difference in ion concentrations above and below a layer of _Chlamydomonas reinhardtii_ that is generated by the cells’ natural biology upon exposure to UV light, and I’m using it to power a little, uh,” Tony waved his hand, “fan thingie. It’s just a test, I got the whole method out of a paper in last month’s _P.N.A.S_.”

Across the other side of the room, Natasha lent back in Tony’s lazy chair and tossed an extremely expensive coil of titanium wire from hand to hand. “All I heard was you’re using Chlamydia in a recipe you got from a penis.”

“Yeah, your mom’s real helpful that way,” Tony countered, and Natasha tipped back her head as her body shook with silent laughter.

“Will it give me an electric shock if I touch it?” Clint raised one finger an inch from the surface of the tiny algae farm.

“No, but I may connect you to the mains with a fucking crowbar,” Tony spun back to his main worktable and frowned down at the spiderweb of circuitry in front of him. He didn’t want to be working on this stupid piece of a refrigerator, even if he was mere days away from making it the most energy-efficient icemaker in the history of kitchen cooling technology. He wanted to be sitting across from Natasha staring at one of the blinky lights on his server rack – which doubled as the heating system for the workshop – and talking shit about nothing. Which reminded him.

“I forgot to tell you. There’s beer in the ice box.”

Clint raised his head, and then frowned. “I can’t drive the jeep if you feed me beer.”

“That, darling, is precisely the idea,” Tony turned his neck to smile broadly at Clint.

“Ok, I’m accepting the beer offer, but if either of you tells Steve and Maria finds out, I may actually become homeless. I’m just saying, that’ll be on your conscience,” Natasha heaved herself out of the chair and headed for the bin on top of a stack of netscreen adaptors. For all his work, Tony didn’t have a single functional fridge in the workshop. It would have been like decorating your art studio with your own painting. Too much self-critique. And the rule, as always, was no distractions in the workshop.

“Pass me over one while you’re at it, that’s a girl,” Tony looked up just in time to catch the can that Natasha had launched at his head at don’t-call-me-girl speed. “Thanks. So,” he popped the tab and then put the beer down beside his circuit board without taking a sip. “What’s up with Bruce?”

“Bruce?” Clint grabbed the lazy chair before Natasha got back to it and briefly tussled with her for control before she propped herself cross-legged on the arm, her knee almost jabbing him in the face.

“Yeah. Bruce. You might know him, I think goes to your school.”

“Nothing’s up with Bruce,” Natasha shrugged, and took a suspiciously long sip from her beer.

“Ye-e-ah, I’m sure,” Tony cocked his head.

Clint ran his finger around the top of his can, still unopened. There was a twitch around his mouth that Tony couldn’t decipher except that it was not a smile. “We don’t know,” he said finally. “He’s not talking.”

“We’ve tried.”

“I even sat passing his mom baking ingredients for forty fucking minutes. She didn’t break,” Clint grimaced.

Natasha shook her head. “It’s either really embarrassing, or really bad.”

Tony waved his screwdriver through the air. “Could be head lice.”

“I’ve had head lice. You don’t lose sleep over head lice,” Natasha said blandly.

“You don’t lose weight, either,” Clint muttered.

“Or bar people from your room,” Natasha added.

“He won’t let you into his room?” Tony raised his eyebrows. “That’s… weird. Um. I am null for explanations.”

“It’s mental,” Clint said quietly, still staring at the silver top of his beer. “Got to be. Anti-depressants. Maybe something else. Fuck,” he rubbed his hand across his face.

Tony didn’t have anything to say to that.

“And you?” Natasha asked, staring him down. “What’s your big secret?”

“I don’t have a secret. If I had a secret, I’d tell you. It’s definitely not a secret lover. That would be absurd,” Tony’s eyes widened and he made a great show of finishing off half of his beer.

“Oh, come on,” Natasha leaned forward over her knees. “Is it your company? Have you been chatting up investors behind your parents’ backs?”

Tony looked down at his hands, the screwdriver still clutched in one fist like a security blanket. He cleared his throat. “Actually, the company thing is still a long way away, that’s just what I’ve been using to cover with Mom and Dad.” He raised his head. “I’ve been looking for my birth parents.”

Natasha froze with her beer halfway to her lips. The tendons in the back of Clint’s hands flexed. They waited for him to continue.

“I haven’t yet,” Tony said quickly. “Found them. Obviously, or you’d know about it. I’m having more trouble than I expected. There’s-” he shook his head. Nope, no, nu-uh. This was not the time. That was all too weird, and now was not the time. Distract them, send the ball back to the other end of the court. “Do either of you know anything about yours?”

"Not a thing," said Natasha, and Clint shook his head.

Tony really liked hanging out with Natasha and Clint, even though - or because - they were the two in the group most likely to call him out on his shit. (What Steve did didn't count as calling him out, because Steve was a passive-aggressive, doe-eyed moper about it.) Tony loved that Natasha and Clint were so different from him. And he liked discussing adoption with them. It was no good talking to Thor about it, since Thor treated adoption like it was the default, like Steve and Bruce were the weird ones for living with their bio-parents. By comparison, Natasha wouldn't piss on her family if they were on fire, and Clint adored his parents and would probably murder several people to protect them despite his professed pacifism, but he still wanted to know his origins. Tony liked information, and the two people sitting in front of him not only had perspectives he wanted to interrogate but shared his drive for this particular knowledge.

It wasn't like he'd had a bad childhood. In fact, he'd had a great childhood. His mum was a nationally renowned publicist, his dad was on the marketing team for a major electronics company, his grandparents were retired corporate lawyers and all their combined love and resources had gone towards giving the only baby in the pedigree the Best Childhood Ever. He'd always known he was adopted. They'd explained it to him so early he didn't even remember it and it would have been obvious anyway - different ethnicity, for starters. So it had never bothered him until the last couple of weeks, when he'd started to crack the databases where sealed info like adoptee birth records was kept. And that was what he really wanted to talk to Clint and Nat about.

No. Not yet. 

The universe, apparently, didn't agree with him, because at the moment he was thinking about this he got the phone call. Three minutes later he was trying to shoo Natasha and Clint out the door.

They wouldn’t go. Fucking stubborn public school kids. “No, honestly, it’s boring, it’s work stuff, I gotta meet, like, a guy from. Um. Biohalisus.”

“That’s not a company,” said Natasha. "You just made that up."

“It is. They do creams. Genetically-engineered creams for tooth decay.”

“What? What’s going on? Is your bio father coming over? Like, right fucking now?” Clint folded his arms and leaned against the garage window, “Tony, your bio father just pulled up in a six month old fucking gorgeous Lamborghini, and – oh, hello.”

“Okay, screw this, both of you, I will do every assignment you’re given for the rest of your high school careers, I swear to god I will even make all effort to teach Clint biology if you just stay out of my way while this meeting is going on.”

“She’s really pretty,” Natasha frowned, joining Clint by the window.

“She has a really nice umbrella,” said Clint, and then as if he’d remembered he was a teenage boy added, “and legs, for your mom.”

“She’s not my mom,” Tony leaned around Natasha’s shoulder. “God, I really hope she’s not my mom.”

The woman disappeared behind the Greek columns under the front awning and Tony bumped heads with Natasha trying to follow her path. The doorbell chimed and he dashed for the front hall, jabbing the screwdriver back towards the others, “Stay there or I won’t be friends with you anymore!”

He was grabbing for the handle when the bell chimed again. He could imagine the impatient woman on the other side with her nice umbrella and her very expensive car, tilting her head and checking her watch because she probably had a Fortune 500 company to run or something. He hadn’t managed to see much else except for her hair, which was a very nice, copper dye job. She’d come without a driver. That was weird for the manager of a Fortune 500 company.

He opened the door.

The woman was framed there exactly as he’d imagined. He blinked at her. She was in her fifties, and that made Tony’s next thought kind of dirty. He wrenched his mind back into focus. “Ms Potts?”

The irritated expression on her face dropped away. Her eyes widened. A soft breath left her mouth, and there was a word inside it. “Tony.”

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“Oh my God,” Ms Potts took a step forward. Tony didn’t know what to do. This was supposed to be an info-sharing meeting. Emotions had not been on the agenda. He backed up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know if Sergeant James spoke to you,” he tossed the screwdriver in the direction of the coat rack and raised his hands, “before, um, my email but you are the liaison for like, the missing persons case, right?”

Ms Potts stared at him, and he saw her pull some internal threads together. Her face became businesslike. “Yes, I filed the original report. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

He smiled, rather weakly, “I know your name and, uh, no, that's about it.”

She looked him up and down. “Okay,” she closed her eyes and touched her forehead. “Sergeant James said you were a perfect match. Okay, so either you’re Tony Stark’s son-”

“Given the MAF of my STRs, a computer error is more likely-”

“Well, it’s not a flippin’ computer error!” she burst out. “Look at you! Jesus!”

“Look at _me_?” he glanced down at his jeans and the loose, comfy T-shirt he’d thrown on for the workshop. He’d spilled a bit of beer on it.

“This is shield,” Ms Potts whispered, and pressed her hand to her mouth, her umbrella slipping back over her shoulder so that the rain dripped off the awning and down the back of her hair. She fumbled for her bag, her hands shaking at the clasps.

“Shield? What’s that mean? Is that, like, New York slang?”

“I shouldn’t be here,” she shook her head, rummaging in her bag and pulling out a slim silver case. “I should not be here. Whatever’s going on, somebody’s been keeping it from me and I don’t know what the hell they’ll do to keep it from you too,” she raised her head to meet his eyes, flicking open the case to reveal a neat stack of business cards. “Take one of these and do not contact me again unless it’s an emergency, you got it?”

“What? Wait, _what_?” Tony took one of the cards, and then looked between it and the woman’s face. There was panic there, and the grim resolution of someone who was very practiced at dealing with panic. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Christ, Tony, I don’t know what’s going on!” Ms Potts shoved her business cards back into her bag and folded her umbrella, hooking it over her shoulder. “Let me handle it. For once in your life, don’t start playing the hero.”

“I repeat for about the sixteenth time: what?”

She looked at him for a moment, gasping again, and then lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She smelled like something he’d smelled before. It fluttered at the periphery of his mind, something so familiar it was killing him not to know. “The only thing I’m sure about is that you are Tony Stark,” she hissed in his ear, then pulled back to grab his face in her hands. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, wondering if this was the sort of encounter they were always telling you to report to a parent or a teacher you trusted.

She kissed his forehead and then turned and rushed through the rain back to her car, trying to hold her bag over her head even though her umbrella was right there in her hand. It took her a couple of seconds to find the button on her key but she got the door open eventually. She met his eyes as she got into the driver’s seat, and then she was backing out of the drive and turning down the road.

Tony shut the door and leaned against it, staring at the business card. 'Pepper Potts, CEO: Stark Industries'. He knew what that was. He didn't understand how it pertained to him. He should have asked her if she knew his parents. He should have asked a lot of things. 

How the hell was he Tony Stark? The guy was dead, wasn't he? And if he wasn't, he'd be pushing sixty by now, right?

Clint and Natasha were standing at the end of the hall, watching him. They crept forward like they thought he’d startle and bolt for it. He wasn't sure he wouldn't. 

"Not your mom?" Clint asked.

"I don't know," Tony said quietly. "She didn't say much."

"Why did she come if not to say much?" Natasha grouched. 

Tony couldn't take his eyes off the card. Well. If nothing else, he could totally hit this Potts woman up for a job. He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. 

"Tony?" Clint asked. "You gonna tell us or is Nat gonna have to beat it out of you?"

"I paid fifty bucks to get a cheek swab barcoded by that DNA sequencing place in town," Tony blurted. "And then I made a fake persona as a police officer and emailed it to the missing persons database."

"Why?" Natasha asked. 

"I couldn't find a copy of my birth certificate," Tony lied. "I thought maybe I was one of those babies people dump at fire stations. That maybe my bio-mom had changed her mind and come looking for me after Mom and Dad got me. Anyway, a few days later they said they had a perfect match. To a fifty-eight year old guy who's been missing for almost two decades."

He laughed as he met their eyes, and Clint echoed it with a disbelieving chuckle of his own. Tony shrugged, "That woman was the one who filed the police report on the missing guy. I thought we were going to have an awkward conversation about how someone at missing persons must have got their files mixed up and copied my barcode over an old one. But she took one look at me, and," Tony shook his head. "I don't know."

"Can we help?" Natasha asked. "Can we do something?"

"No, it's fine, y'know," Tony pushed away from the door and stuck Ms Potts’s card in his pocket. He walked past his friends in a daze. "I've had, like, half a beer, I'm probably not safe to drive. Dad will be home soon, he can drop you off."

"Tony-" 

Clint interrupted Natasha, "Dad’s shift finishes in twenty minutes, I'll give him a text. If the hospital doesn't keep him late he can pick us up on his way home."

"Yeah," Tony said distantly. "That'd be good. Thanks Clint."

He shut the door of the workshop behind him, blocking them out. He stared at his hands, running calculations through his head. If Tony Stark was his father, there was a tiny, tiny chance that Tony could have inherited an identical half-set of STRs from his biological mother. Hey, it was way less than one in a million, but there were eight billion people on Earth, so it probably happened all the time without anyone checking for it. That was the only explanation. He was a missing billionaire CEO's son and Ms Potts had recognised that and got herself confused, talking about... whatever she'd been talking about. Maybe she didn't want the press to find out. Maybe Tony was the heir to the company and she didn't want the board of directors to find out. 

He slid down the inside of the workshop door and curled his arms around his knees, wracking his brain for everything he knew about Tony Stark. The guy had been some kind of eccentric genius, hadn't he? Tony knew more about the details of Stark Industries computer interfaces than he did about its lost CEO. They made good tech. 

Shit. This hadn't been the plan. He didn't want to be embroiled in a police case and a corporate scandal at his age. He wanted to build his own work, on his own reputation, not with the shadow of a long-dead father looming over him. He'd been prepared for bad news - maybe his birth parents were dead, maybe they were drug-addled crims in jail somewhere, maybe they didn't even want to meet him - but this was something different. 

He shoved himself to his feet, dragged the nearest working laptop onto a clear part of the bench and started searching. Wikipedia – news agencies – blogs – YouTube – there was more info on Tony Stark than he could begin to process. Did that guy really bear a resemblance to him? Tony pulled over a polished piece of shell from his unfinished icemaker and compared his reflection to an early photo of his mystery father. Maybe? Maybe a bit – well, more than a bit – but Grandma always said _güeros_ all looked the same, so Tony was probably imagining it. On the other hand, Rob and Brydon from around the corner were identical twins, Tony could barely tell them apart, but they always claimed they were completely different. They couldn’t see their similarities in the slightest.

Shit. Tony tossed the shell down with a clatter and rubbed his hands over his face. He let out a long breath. Okay, he had to go through this systematically. Start with the basic outline.

Leaning his elbows on the bench, he read the Wikipedia page on Tony Stark from top to bottom. Lots of it was speculation, but the general story was the guy was born and bred from money and genius, and gave his company a controversial but popular face. He’d had some kind of enlightenment in his late thirties– spiritual, Tony guessed – and completely rerouted his company from a weapons manufacturer to… well, the article listed a bunch of stuff. Yadda, yadda. Tony scrolled down.

**Iron Man**

That was a familiar term. There were geeks at Worthington High who still had retro-printed Iron Man shirts. Tony raised his chin out of his hands. He read about Stark’s superhero persona, and the various humanitarian causes he’d pursued, not always successfully. Well, that was kind of cool, right? His dead dad had been a superhero. That was a good pickup line. Tony scanned through to the final paragraph of the ‘Iron Man’ section. Apparently Stark had eventually joined and then funded a whole bunch of whacko heroes called “The Avengers”. Tony opened the corresponding link in a new tab and went back to reading about Stark.

There was no mention of death. Tony Stark, it seemed, had simply disappeared just over sixteen years ago, in the same month Steve had been born. The article said the company – Pepper Potts’s name cropped up a couple of times – initially denied foul play, stating that Stark regularly pulled such stunts. It was two years before the police declared Tony Stark legally dead and all control of Stark Industries had been transferred to Miss Potts. 

Interesting. So she had certainly gained from Tony Stark’s vanishing act. Surely she would have just as much to lose if Tony was proved to be Stark’s long-lost son. Tony felt worms begin to writhe in his gut. Pepper had seemed nice. He’d wanted to trust her. Surely everything she’d rambled on about hadn’t been just about protecting her own interests.

He almost missed the last sentence, but something caught his eye. He went back to it.

_“It is now generally accepted [1][2] that Tony Stark’s disappearance coincided with the period that the rest of the Avengers also ceased to be seen in public.”_

Tony frowned. There they were again. He switched the tab he had open about this new crew. 

_“ The Avengers were a New-York based[1] team of masked vigilantes who operated for a period of about thirty months, mainly on crises within the United States. Though they had a high-profile public face during this period[2], their disappearance sometime in late 2014 was never resolved[3].”_

“Holy shit,” said Tony. Some of the faces were familiar to him; Captain America in his silly blue spandex and cowl, everyone knew the original superhero, and apparently Spiderman had worked briefly with the team as well. There was little information on the rest of the members, though blurry footage and a few key photos showed a gigantic, green giant like Benjamin Grimm on steroids, and a big, Nordic-looking guy in a cape.

“Why have I never heard of you guys?” Tony muttered, opening searches in the background for better footage and photographs. Sure, costumed vigilantes weren’t exactly new to him, but a team with so _many_ superheroes was something that came along once a decade. They must have been huge in their time – unless they’d failed to do anything impressive, Tony thought. 

The article answered his question for him: _“Unlike many popular ‘superheroes’, the Avengers were self-funded by member Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) and were therefore not popularised by the merchandise, films and other media that has sponsored the work of other vigilantes. Despite multiple commendations for their work, their lack of commercial value meant they had less of an impact on pop culture. Their actions have since been swamped in the rich history of costumed villainy in America and Europe. A film slanted for production in 2019 never made it past scripting.”_

“Far-fucking-out,” Tony leaned back in his chair, fluffing up his hair. “My Dad was _badass_.”

Oh, God. Pepper had told him not to contact her unless it was an emergency – had even specifically said, “don’t play the hero”. What if she wanted his identity kept a secret to protect him? What if she knew there were people out there - _costumed villains_ \- who had grudges to settle against his father? And he’d been blundering about throwing his name and DNA all over the Internet. 

Tony closed the laptop and rested his chin on his knuckles. “I gotta be more careful.” 

He was too young to be dealing with this. He'd talk to the others tomorrow, they'd clear out his head. He wasn't alone in this.


	5. Interlude / Natasha

When Natasha got back to the house at eight, there were no lights on in the front room or the upstairs bedrooms. She found Maria sitting at the kitchen table, looking at a stack of papers. As Natasha opened the door she swept most of them into a plastic folder. 

"Hi, Nat. There's a plate in the fridge for you."

"Thanks," Natasha made a beeline for the food. Her stomach felt bubbly and a bit bloated from the beer and sort of lopsided, like she was missing a limb somewhere, because she and Clint had left Tony locked in his workshop without saying goodbye to him. Food would fix it. Food fixed everything. She put the plate of spinach and feta pasta in the microwave and gave it a couple of minutes. "Where's Steve?"

Maria glanced down at one of the few papers she hadn't hidden, tapping her propelling pencil against the table. "He's at the doctor."

Natasha spun around, "He's sick?" she hadn't seen Steve since the tryouts and coffee that Monday. For a moment, she was struck with the horrible idea that he somehow had the same illness as Bruce, that one by one they were all being struck down-

"No, he's at a psychiatrist," Maria said calmly. Natasha was unclear why she was so calm. What had Clint said? _It's mental_. And it was contagious.

"Why? Nothing's wrong with Steve. Why does Steve need a psychiatrist?"

Maria straightened up, a wrinkle appearing between her brows. "It's alright, Natasha. I just wanted him to talk to somehow, and he was happy to. I'm worried about body dysmorphia - you've seen how much muscle he's put on this year. That's not normal."

"That's normal! Lot's of boys do that in their teens!" Natasha stormed around the table, but Maria stood up smoothly to meet her. She was half a head taller, and she looked down at Natasha with her dark eyes, quite unafraid. 

"What's this doctor's name?" Natasha demanded.

"That's not your business."

"I'll just get it out of Steve when he gets home."

Maria's eyelids tightened a little. After a moment she said, "Dr Dave Walters."

The microwave beeped and Natasha grabbed her food and went straight upstairs to the spare room. Maria watched her go. 

In her room with her still-not-unpacked bags, Natasha pulled over her laptop and searched the doctor's name. The first few results were about a gastroenterologist, so she added 'psychiatrist' to the search. That brought up several pages about a clinical researcher in California, but a quick glance at his university profile revealed he was currently on sabbatical - in Bangor, Maine. This had to be the guy. Was it normal to take new patients while on leave? Or was he some friend of Maria and making a special exception for her son? Natasha went to Dr Walters's research page and read through the papers he'd published. None of them were about body dysmorphia. In fact, most of his projects centred around PTSD, dissociative identities and memory repression. Why would he be interested in treating Steve? Did Maria know about this? 

She pulled out her phone and texted Clint: "maria sent steve to a shrink, u no anything about it??" 

Clint replied within a couple of minutes: "y fuk wud i? u liv w/ hm"

"idk wtf 2 do, seems weird on top of th tony thing" she responded. 

"yeh i no" was his only input. 

About ten five minutes later, she got another text, this time from Bruce. "hey Nat, just heard from Tony that Steve's in therapy? Do you know the name of the dr?'

'r u srs where did tony hear this' she texted back.

'He said Thor told him. Name plz?'

Fingers flying, Natasha texted Clint. 'did u just tell thor that steve's in therapy???'

Clint replied within seconds, 'yeh bt nah i sed a head dr y' 

'jfc clint!!! U DONT TELL PPL UNLESS STEVE SEZ ITS OK' 

'lol u did' he pointed out.

Fuming, Natasha texted Bruce, 'maria sed the guys name is david walters'

She was halfway through another raging, cuss-filled text to Clint when Bruce's response appeared at the top of her screen.

'That's my dr too' was all he said.

Natasha stared at the message for a moment, and then pulled over her laptop with the smiling photograph of Dr Walters. This - this was a coincidence, right? It had to be. Maybe Dr Walters was doing a study on teens - that meant free psychiatric treatment - maybe both Bruce's parents and Maria had decided to take up the offer because that shit was expensive, Natasha knew that very well. That had to be it. 

'has he been helping?' she texted Bruce. There was no answer. She waited the rest of the night, but Bruce didn't reply.


	6. Steve

Steve saw Tony and Natasha on the bench across the park, the bare trees making a lattice of skeleton fingers above their heads. They had their backs to him, sitting up and facing each other in heated conversation. A pair of trim joggers crossed ways with Steve. One of them glanced back as she passed, but Steve wasn’t paying attention. He doubled his pace.

They’d got the summons from Tony a few hours earlier. He hadn’t said what the plan was, only that they were meeting at the park halfway between their schools. It was too cold for an outdoor meeting, but the last few days, everything had felt a bit mixed up. Not always in a bad way: playing football, being _good_ at something for the first time in his life, that had been a frightening but wonderful surprise. But Tony had been shifty and secretive for ages, like he was manoeuvring something behind the scenes. Clint and Natasha, who had always been proudly and openly childish, seemed to be maturing faster than everyone. And Bruce, who was their quiet rock, the reliable editor to Tony's rocketing brains, was suddenly yielding and unsure of himself. 

Steve wondered if Bruce knew how much he needed him. He wasn't a stranger to taking charge. Even when he'd been no taller than Natasha he'd put his foot down plenty of times, he'd always organised the safety gear when they went hiking, or sorted transport with parents, or ordered Natasha and Thor to stop drinking on the rare occasions they had someone's house to themselves for a weekend. He reckoned it was why Tony picked on him more than the others, because Tony saw himself as their inevitable leader. But Bruce had always been there to back Steve up on the serious decisions just as Natasha tended to throw her weight behind Tony. Without his lieutenant, Steve was afraid he'd crumble. 

The jeep was parked at a meter nearby. It looked like a guard dog to Steve. He half expected its engine to rumble a warning as he approached. Tony and Natasha still hadn’t noticed him, and he slowed down as their argument grew louder.

“No, this is about you, this is about you trying to sort yourself out,” Natasha was saying. “I get that Tony, I do, but now is not the right time.”

“How? How is it not right?”

“Because of Bruce,” Natasha jabbed at something on the bench that Steve couldn’t see. “You want to put this on his plate on top of everything else?”

“You want me to _lie_ to him?” Tony’s voice rose. “You want me to bring this up in a year or two, hey buddy, we just didn’t think you were mature enough to understand-”

Natasha’s head twitched around. “Steve,” she smiled, and then shot Tony the filthiest look. Behind the solid back of the bench, Tony shoved something into his bag.

“How long have you been standing there?” Natasha asked, with that sweetness that always made Steve feel like she was putting a hypodermic against his neck.

“Not that long,” he said cautiously.

“Do you mind not asking? Not yet?” she said, even when Tony started to complain. “Please?”

He shrugged and she shuffled over so that he could sit on the end. Nobody said anything. Steve could see Tony twitching and flexing his fingers over the bag on his lap. Natasha sat rod-straight and still smiling like nothing was wrong.

"So what'd you talk to the psychiatrist about?" Tony burst out suddenly.

Steve twisted around. "How - where did you–”

"Maria told Natasha, she told Clint, Clint told me, Thor and Bruce know too," Tony rattled off. "Ow, Jesus!" he said, when Natasha elbowed him, presumably as punishment since she was far too late to stop him talking.

Natasha turned her sharp eyes on Steve. "I'm sorry. When Maria told me I freaked out. I shouldn’t have told them."

“He’s Bruce’s shrink,” Tony leaned forward to talk around Natasha. “Did you know that? Your mom sent you to the same scientist who’s treating Bruce.”

This was definitely news for Steve, too close on heels of the revelation that nothing he did was private, apparently. “Huh?”

Before they could discuss it further, there was a gust of wind and underneath it came the roar of Thor’s goatbike. He thrummed around the corner and pulled up in front of the jeep.

“Hello, friends!” he pulled off his helmet and the bike’s suspension heaved upwards as he got off it. “Why d’you all look so glum? I brought food.”

He swaggered over to the bench and started lifting plastic bags of Thai takeaways out of his backpack. “I think I got at least one thing everyone likes,” he said uncertainly, as if it was biggest thing he had worried about all month – which it probably was. Steve felt a little warmer as Thor dumped the bags on Tony and Natasha’s laps. That smile was infectious.

Tony stood up and waved his arm at Clint and Bruce who had just appeared out of the nearest side street. "Where've they been?" Steve asked.

"Bruce wasn't at school. Clint went to get him," Natasha explained.

Bruce walked like a condemned man, his fists clenched by his side and his head down, his mouth set in a hard line. The group got off the bench and moved into a circle on the grass, sitting on bags and jackets because the ground was still faintly dewy from the morning. Nothing really thawed during winter. Thor and Tony passed around the recyclable boxes of pad Thai and green curry. The food steamed into the air as they were opened.

“Hi,” Bruce said, lowering himself to sit cross-legged between Natasha and Clint. “How’s everyone.”

He didn’t sound like he cared that much, about them or anything else. He took the peanut satay that Clint passed and start to eat like he had a gun to his head. Steve felt his appetite whither.

“Are you sick, bro?” he asked softly.

Bruce raised his head from the food. There were shadows under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow. He took several seconds to speak, and didn’t answer Steve’s question. “I heard you went to Dr Walters.”

“I didn’t know he was your psychiatrist too.”

Bruce stared at him. Steve shifted, feeling how his clothes were too tight and the sleeves on his jacket were too short for his arms, letting the cold air in.

“Why?” Natasha asked Steve.

“Mom just said she was worried about me,” Steve shrugged. “You know how mothers get.”

“I’ve never had a mother,” Natasha blanked.

“Well it didn’t have anything to do with Bruce,” Steve insisted. “Even Dr Walters seemed to think Mom was overreacting. We had a good chat, he asked me how school was going, whether I was sleeping alright. He said I seemed as healthy as a horse but I could call him if I needed to discuss anything.”

“That was it?” Tony pressed.

“Well,” Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “We had time before Mom was gonna pick me up so he asked if he could hypnotise me. He said he wanted to try some breathing exercises he’d been doing with some other patients, to see the reaction in a healthy control.”

Natasha put her green curry down so fast a bit slopped over her hand. Tony leaned forward over his knees, “Well? Steve, what did he do to you?”

"Nothing, dude,” Steve flung out his arms. “He hypnotized me, I breathed, I remember it all, then he woke me up and I went home. Nothing happened.”

“He was talking about me,” Bruce said. His voice cracked halfway through, and he had the attention of everyone in the circle though he was only looking at Steve. “I'm the patient he was controlling for. He’s been trying the hypnotism and breathing exercises with me, to try and stop-”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Bruce, buddy, come on,” Tony groaned. “You gotta let this out.”

“No, no, Dad said-”

“Fucking balls to your dad,” Clint grabbed Bruce’s shoulder. “Tell us what’s going on.”

“We’ll do anything for you, Bruce,” Natasha whispered.

“Of course we will,” Thor agreed.

Bruce wrung his hands, his head dropping low as if to ward off a faint. Steve heard him hiss through his teeth. Clint’s hand squeezed harder, “Hey, hey, it’s not an ultimatum, man, if you don’t want to, we understand.”

“No, I do, you’re just not going to believe me,” Bruce growled.

“We believe you,” Steve countered. “We promise.”

Bruce took a deep breath through his nose and ran his shaking hands through his hair. “It started three months ago.”

He paused, and in the crisp winter air they waited for him to go on. After a few seconds he did. “I felt weird when I woke up. Like… when you dream you’re falling, and you wake up as you hit the ground. Overstrung. My heart was racing. I was still in bed, but I must have been sleepwalking because I’d torn off my pajamas. Don’t laugh-”

“We won’t,” said Tony, and even he wasn’t cracking a smile.

“I don’t just mean I’d gotten undressed, I mean they were in shreds. My Mom and Dad joked about it, we figured it was a teenage hormone thing giving me night terrors. Then a couple of weeks later, they woke up in the middle of the night and there was this banging and crashing in my room. They found me asleep on the floor, but my room was trashed – like, the whole back broken off my desk chair, my duvet ripped in half, my drawers upside down – insane stuff. I didn’t remember any of it. It happened again a few days later, and again two days after that. Every time, the noises would finish before my parents could reach my room. They’ve taken everything out except my mattress and bedding, nothing else survives in there. That’s when my parents talked to our family doctor, and he said he knew an expert psychiatrist who was in town for a few months,” Bruce knotted his fingers together, pressing them to his mouth. “Dr Walters was really good. I liked him. It seemed like the exercises he was giving me were helping.”

“He lied to you about Steve,” Tony said, when Bruce paused.

“Nobody knows that he lied about anything, Tony,” Steve growled.

“The hell he didn’t, he recruits Bruce’s friends, he’s in league with Maria-”

“In league? In _league_? Can you leave wild accusations about my mother out of this?”

“You won’t say that when I-”

“There’s more,” Bruce said. Tony and Steve fell quiet. There was colour in Bruce’s cheeks now, and his eyes were shadowed by his lashes. “Last night when I found out about Dr Walters and Steve, I was confused, so Mom rung him and he claimed it was a coincidence, that he didn’t know Steve was my friend. I didn’t believe that. I was angry. I tried to go to bed, but I couldn’t sleep, I felt like I didn’t know who to trust anymore, and I took the sleep drugs and the Seroquel pills Dr Walters gave me, but I just got more and more anxious. Next thing I remember is Dad levering up my bedroom my window to get at me,” Bruce dug his fingertips into his scalp. “He said… there had been the noises, same as usual, and they’d run upstairs, but the door was jammed shut… I’d warped the whole frame somehow. They could still hear me crashing around. Dad ran outside and climbed up onto the veranda roof to reach my window. And he looked inside, and he said… he said what he saw in there, it wasn’t me… he said it wasn’t even human…”

Bruce looked up and his eyes met Steve’s. His hands were shaking. “There's something dangerous inside me. I can’t let it get out again.”

“Bruce,” Steve shuffled across the circle and pulled the other teen into his arms. “We’re all in this with you, got it?”

Bruce’s muscles were twitching but he wasn’t crying. For the first time in months Steve really appreciated what it meant to have grown so tall, to be big enough to put your arms right round someone. Bruce wasn’t a small guy but Steve felt like he could pick him up with one hand, if he’d wanted to. They stayed that way until Bruce's muscles stopped twitching and he pulled away from Steve.

"Thanks. I'm okay now," he said groggily. 

"We want you more than okay,” Tony hissed, lunging across the circle and throwing himself on Bruce in a tight embrace. Clint gave a territorial growl and wriggled in under Tony's elbow, and Thor joined the pile by wrapping his arms around all three of them. Over his shoulder, Bruce's face was flushed in blotches and he mouthed pleas for help at Steve without making a committed attempt to struggle free. Natasha rolled her eyes but leaned into the place where Clint and Bruce met, tangling her fingers in Thor's shaggy hair. 

"You boys," she muttered.

"Your boys," Steve corrected her, and she blushed almost as much as Bruce. To the others Steve whistled, "Alright, let him go, his food's getting cold."

"Thank you, Steve," Bruce said in exaggerated annoyance, straightening out his sleeves. The colour was evening in his face now and his voice was clearer. 

"So, what do can we do?" Tony asked him earnestly. "I'll pay for another therapist if that's what you need, and one of us can go with you every time-"

"No, I think I should go back to Dr Walters," said Bruce. "I really think he was helping. I shouldn’t have freaked out and asked Mom to cancel our sessions, hearing about Steve just set off this stupid paranoia. I'll ring him when I get home and tell him I've changed my mind." 

"I think we're missing the biggest problem here," Steve said heavily, and the group turned to look at him. Steve chewed the inside of his cheek. "Tony, how do you explain what's been happening to Bruce?"

"Dissociative Identity Disorder," Tony said.

"Really?"

"No. It bears absolutely no resemblance, I just hate not knowing the answer," Tony sighed. "And Bruce is, well... a nice person. Mental illness doesn't turn nice people violent, no matter what the movies suggest. And whatever his dad saw... all I can guess is that waking up in a panic, thinking your son's smashing his fists through walls, might play tricks on the eyes. It was dark, and he was scared."

“He could be a mutant,” Clint pointed out.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “There was that woman in Las Vegas with super-strength, remember? Her powers manifested as a second personality.”

“I can’t be a mutant, Mom and Dad both tested negative for the gene,” Bruce shook his head. 

Tony sucked in a breath, “Well actually, there’s something-”

"Where is this going, Steve?" Natasha cut in. 

"I don't know, I'm just saying..." Steve wrapped his arms around his torso. Clint was glaring at him, and Bruce had gone pale again. Thor, who'd stayed by Bruce's side after the hug attack, shifted a little closer to their troubled friend. "I'm just saying we need to know. Before he hurts himself."

"If Bruce trusts Dr Walters, then Dr Walters will figure it out," Tony said, waving his hand to soothe Bruce's cluster of fierce protectors. "Right, Bruce?"

"Yeah," Bruce pushed himself to his feet. "Maybe I should go home right now and call him."

"I'll come with," Clint starting getting up.

Bruce shook his head. He gave a shaky smile. "I can walk home without an escort."

"Woah, you’ll have to get your credit card out for that, bro," Clint winked. He stretched and picked up his bag. "Come on. Don't say no, I'll just follow you home anyway."

"Fine, whatever," Bruce threw up his hands and waved at the others. "You lot have a good afternoon."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Natasha asked.

Bruce grimaced down at where his hands were twisting the straps of his backpack, but then the grimace became a smile. He glanced around the circle. "I think I am," he said confidently. "Thanks, guys."

"Come find us later if you want," Thor raised his hand. Clint slapped it and then threw his arm around Bruce's shoulder.

Steve watched them walk off along the pavement. Bruce's hands in his pockets and his dark hair mussed up at the back. Clint said something and gave a machine-gun laugh, elbowing him and earning a gentle punch to the arm in return. 

There was silence for a long handful of minutes before Tony gave a grunt, "I'm freezing my already very blue balls off, can we get out of the breeze?" 

The wind was picking up and the clouds looked as thick as cement in the churning sky. They picked up bags and brushed dry grass from their jackets as they pulled them on. 

"Where're we going?" Steve asked. 

“Tony's house," chorused Thor and Natasha, and they both race to add, "Personal jinx!" and high-fived a ceasefire at their equal skill. Tony demanded that everyone pick up the food containers left on the grass, "or so help me, I will personally spank each and every one of you." 

Steve couldn't help smiling at the improvement in mood. He glanced back towards the corner of the park where Clint and Bruce were waiting for the crossing light. Bruce was definitely feeling better: Clint had him in a headlock now, both of them grinning as Bruce hollered for mercy. Clint let him go, and then yelped and bolted away as Bruce roared and made his hands into claws scrabbling for Clint's throat. 

Steve turned back to the others. "If we're going to Tony's house, can we-"

He never finished. At that moment there was the screech of brakes that made him falter, and then Natasha's scream cut him off.

_"Bruce!”_

There was such fear and shock in her voice that Steve spun and looked for Bruce without consciously making the decision to. 

Clint was stumbling towards the crossing where Bruce had been standing a moment before as a black van accelerated around the corner and past him. He turned and sprinted after it, falling hopelessly behind in seconds. Where was Bruce? He’d been there a moment ago. Sirens were going off inside Steve’s head, but he couldn’t figure out where Bruce had gone. Natasha was pointing, her tone cast in total horror.

"They took him! _They took him!_ " she yelled. "The men in that van! _They dragged him into the van!_ "


	7. Steve

Tony had his cellphone already against his ear, while Thor had bolted for his bike. Seconds must have passed, but to Steve everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He started to run - not along the sidewalk, but in an almost perpendicular line across the park. The van was pushing the speed limit, but it was also sticking to the inside lane. They were going around the park rather than turning off immediately. Some part of Steve's brain had focused on an empty piece of tarmac on the distant edge of the park, and he wasn't really thinking about it but if he had he would have wondered what he was doing. All he thought about was running as fast as he could.

He had never been much of a runner. Most of his childhood phys-ed lessons had been spent trailing at the back of the class, stopping to suck on his inhaler every few minutes. His mom used to write him notes to get him out of the worst of the exercise, though he had rarely used them because of the ridicule it accrued him. When he, Clint, Natasha and Bruce had been kids and they'd gone biking in the forest, Steve had never been able to keep up no matter how hard he pedelled or how deeply he heaved for breath. It hadn't seemed fair. 

The day of tryouts had been the first time he realised that his body had truly changed. Sure, he'd known before then how much smaller everyone seemed and how much easier it was to heft his schoolbag full of books and shift furniture around the house so that Natasha to move in. But the tryouts were the first day he'd run. 

And how he ran. 

Now he wasn't thinking about impressing anybody. He wasn't thinking self-conscious thoughts about how he expected to feel the closing grip of asthma in his chest, about how stupid he was going to look when he exhausted himself after only a few hundred feet. The only thing he was focused on was that spot on the road. He ripped off his too-small blazer and school tie, tossing them behind him. He felt a seam burst in the shoulder of his school shirt. His legs pumped and his neck was extended between his shoulders, arms pivoting, as he flew across the grass, leaped clean over a Labrador whose owner shrieked in surprise, and adjusted slightly to whip between two trees. He could see the black shadow of the van in his peripheral vision now, approaching from the left. Somehow he managed to increase his pace, his eyes fixed only on the road.

He reached the pavement on the far side of the park half a second before the van did, and without slowing down he jumped straight at the passenger door. The tinted window was rolled down as the guy in the seat - in a black jacket with a high collar - leaned out to look for pursuit behind them. One of Steve's hands locked down on the frame of the window, the other on the scruff of the guy's neck. With the remainder of his momentum, Steve braced his sneakers on the side of the van and hauled the guy right out the window. He threw him screaming into the grass of the park. He didn't wait to see him roll to a stop, because the wind of the speeding van was barraging against him and his grip on the window frame wasn't going to hold out forever. 

He reached in and felt for the handle, putting one foot on the side of the van to pull open the door and throw himself inside feet-first. The driver, dressed in the same black uniform as his now missing passenger, gave a loud curse as Steve crashed through into the passenger seat and surged over the gearstick to grab the wheel. There was only half a second of struggle before the driver slammed on the brakes.

The van fishtailed, leaning like a ship in a storm as it spun chaotically and then smashed nose-first into a bollard that marked the back entrance to the park. The bonnet folded shallowly and Steve was hurled back against the windshield, but managed to curl and throw his hands over his head so that the full force hit him on the back and shoulders. The glass turned into a spiderweb of white-green cubes but held in one piece, depositing Steve on the dashboard. He grunted and raised his head, feeling aches run down his torso. The driver, who _had_ been wearing his seatbelt, stared open-mouthed at him. 

In the distance, Steve heard the puttering of a motorbike. The passenger-side door hung open and Steve saw Thor come screaming up the inside lane and skid to a halt a couple of feet from the van. There was a crash as Thor dumped the bike where it was and leaped for the sliding side door. The metal screeched as it opened, and Steve would wonder later if Thor had torn the lock right off as he ripped it open. The next second, the whole van shuddered as Thor jumped into the back, and another black-clad assailant was hurled right out onto the road, and then another. 

There was a mechanical click. He looked back at the driver to find a short-nosed pistol pointed directly at his face. 

"Sorry, Cap," the driver said in a low voice. "Gonna have to ask you to exit the vehicle."

"Okay, dude, okay," Steve wriggled backwards off the dashboard. All his joints hurt, especially his neck, but he couldn't feel any serious lacerations or broken bones. He raised his hands as he climbed out the passenger door, his eyes never leaving the driver's face. When he finally glanced away it was to see Thor hauling Bruce out of the van. Thor's arms were locked around Bruce's chest as three more kidnappers inside the rear cabin stared at the star footballer. Their assault rifles were at the ready, but Thor was paying them no attention at all. 

The man that Steve had thrown out of the moving van was being helped back to his group by the two that Thor had tossed onto the road. Bruce didn't seem to be walking of his own accord, so Steve took hold of his feet and he and Thor carried him to the sidewalk across the street. A car had stopped in the oncoming lane, blocking the rest of the traffic. The driver was on his cellphone, and several people in a nearby cafe had left their afternoon meals to stand up and ogle the crash sight. Two or three of them had their phones in their hands, arms outstretched to take pictures or video. Somehow that was the first thing that really made Steve angry. 

Steve could see the driver of the van turning to survey the scene, and then he gave a barking order and the three attackers hurried back into the rear cabin and slammed the door. The engine whined as it was ground into reverse and a whiff of smoke crawled from under the dented hood, but it backed up a few feet and then turned and drove away as fast as it could. 

Steve realised he'd been standing in front of Bruce and Thor with his fists raised. He blinked and lowered his arms, turning to his friends.

Thor was crouched down with Bruce locked inside the loop of his arms. Their friend's eyes were open, but his head lolled and his legs were shuddering as he futilely tried to get purchase on the road. One of his sleeves was rolled up to the elbow and there was a speck of blood in the crook there. Thor's eyes were panicked as he looked at Steve, "I think he's been drugged."

"Keep him awake. Where's Tony?" Steve shaded his eyes and saw to his relief that the jeep was just lurching around the corner. Tony pulled up right beside them, jumping down onto the road as Clint and Natasha tumbled out of the back seats.  

"Oh my fucking God," was the first reaction Steve heard out of any of them, from Clint. Natasha and Tony were silent until they were crouched by Bruce's side. When he heard that Bruce might have been drugged, Clint went very pale and took a step back as if afraid he would hurt him.

"'m okay," Bruce was mumbling, his hands clutching weakly at Thor, "'m okay. Lemme up-"

"You stay where you are, buddy, you're doped up good," Tony told him, putting his hand on Bruce's chest and then checking his pulse.

A cacophony of car horns had started up further down the road, behind the first car that had stopped. Steve cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at the man in the stopped car, who still had his phone to his ear, "Hey! You calling the police?"

The man nodded and leaned out his window to reply. "Does he need an ambulance?"

Steve looked towards Tony, who had stood up and was running one hand through his hair. "What the fuck was that?" he asked no one in particular. "What the _fuck_? It's just one thing after another and none of it makes sense-"

"Tony!" Steve grabbed his arm. "Calm down and tell us what to do."

"Yeah, gotcha," Tony took a breath. "We need to get Bruce to the hospital. You and Thor stay and talk to the cops."

Clint and Natasha helped Thor get Bruce upright. He couldn't support his own weight, but he was making a valiant effort to walk, which mostly served to hinder their attempts to carry him. Natasha stepped back to keep from getting in the way, but Clint and Thor still had to lean Bruce against the hood of the jeep for a few seconds to rearrange their hold on him. Bruce said something about men with guns.

"I know, dude, but you're safe now," Clint promised. He used his sleeve to wipe a thin line of drool from the corner of Bruce's mouth. 

"Keep him calm," Natasha said, hovering behind them. "It’s important you keep him calm."

The wail of police sirens announced the arrival of the authorities, a single car whizzing around the line of blocked traffic. They braked and two officers jumped out. Both drew their weapons almost immediately. 

"Stop! All of you, on the ground!"

"Oh, Jesus," whispered Steve. He raised his hands, "It's okay, guys, we're his friends-"

 _"On the ground, sir! Now!"_ the nearest officer barked. Steve glanced around, but he could imagine what it looked like – Clint and Thor wrestling a barely-conscious Bruce into a big black jeep. They just had to keep the situation calm until they could explain everything. 

He dropped to his knees and twisted to look at where Thor was gaping at the cop in despair, still hanging on to Bruce so he didn't collapse. A moment later, Steve was on the ground sniffing asphalt with a sharp weight pressing into the small of his back and his wrists were being wrenched behind him. 

"Hey! I just said, we're not the kidnappers!" Steve grunted, though it was kind of hard to talk when his jaw were scraping against the road.

What if Bruce was fading on them? What if they’d pumped him full of horse tranquilisers or worse? What if he was having a reaction to the drugs? It wasn’t like in the movies, there was no standard dose to knock someone else, you could kill them if you weren’t trained—

A pair of cold steel handcuffs locked around Steve’s wrists. He raised his head a little, "Tony, just get Bruce out of here, I'll sort these guys-"

"I said don't move!" the second officer yelled, directing his gun at Tony as the teen reached for the door of the jeep. This was apparently too much for Thor. His cheeks reddened and tendons began to stick out in his neck. He dropped Bruce's arm, leaving and strode towards the second officer. 

"Look here," he bellowed, "We are just trying to help, and our friend needs medical attention! Put that gun away."

Steve swore internally. Now Thor was standing with the officer's handgun lining him up. And Thor just standing, arms crossed and feet apart, all two hundred and fifty pounds of athletically-honed muscle and pubescent blond beard, was a very threatening sight. Sure enough, the officer was now yelling at him to get down and put his hands behind his head, but of course he was _Thor_ who thought the worst that could happen was buying the wrong item off the Thai takeaway menu, and he just stood there as if daring the officer to shoot him. He didn't seem to understand that _it was a dare the officer might actually accept_. Steve glanced over to see Clint opening the back door of the jeep and roughly coaxing Bruce inside. 

"Tony, just go!" Steve called. "We'll be fine!"

"Don't tell me to step back," Natasha sneered at the officer with his gun trained on Thor. She had planted herself between the cop and Thor, her hands on her hips. "None of us are armed, none of us are kidnapping anyone, and every person in that cafe over there is recording this, so why don't start doing your job and listen to us!"

Steve saw Tony slide up to the driver's door of the jeep. The cop still pinning Steve to the ground yelled at him to stop. Steve was pretty sure he could roll the guy off with barely nudge, but he still didn't know where the officer's handgun was, and he seemed to be the only person who wasn’t actively trying to provoke anyone.

"Shut your mouth, sweetheart," the second cop was saying to Natasha, but he was at last holstering his weapon. "You are under arrest for obstructing-"

He moved to grab one of Natasha's arms. 

What happened next was so fast Steve couldn't process it until it was over. He saw what seemed to be Natasha and the cop both move suddenly, and then the cop's face was smashing into Natasha's knee, and he was somersaulting in the air and landing on his back, the blood from his nose forming a tight arc of droplets in the air that splattered on his face as soon as he hit the asphalt. 

There were screams from the patrons of the cafe. The cop's partner yelled and rose off Steve's kidneys, whipping his gun towards Natasha and firing twice, but by the time his aim was straight she wasn't there anymore, she was beside the gun, and then he was facing the opposite way and there was a muffled crunch as his forearm broke. The gun was in Natasha's hand now, and her other arm was around the kneeling officer's throat, and the hand with the gun had its heel pressed against his neck. His face went white and his eyes rolled up and in the next moment he crumpled onto the road. 

Natasha stood unloading the gun, and then she stopped and stared at it. She lifted her eye to meet Steve's gaze, and put the gun down beside the officer who'd fainted as if she'd just found it there. The magazine she threw aside like it was a gum wrapper. 

Steve rolled onto his side. Natasha looked down at her hands and then back towards him, her face white. “Steve?”

He couldn’t even find a way to answer. Her fingers were shaking as she took the keys from the officer whose carotid artery she had compressed. 

"Tony, go to the hospital!" she cried, looking over her shoulder at where Tony stood with his mouth hanging open. "And _keep Bruce calm!"_

"Nat," Steve croaked as she stepped over the officer's body and crouched beside him. Behind her, the man with the broken nose was moaning and covering his face to try and stem the bleeding. Thor had one hand to his mouth. "Nat, how did you do that?"

"I don't know, please shut up, I don't know," Natasha mumbled. Steve felt the cuffs fall away and she helped him to his feet. His body ached and his head ached and there were grazes on his back from where he'd hit the windshield and another one on his chin from being shoved against the road.

Tony was executing a tidy three-point turn. Steve caught a glimpse of Clint's face against the window before they accelerated past the cars that had lined up behind him. Thor bent to try and help the cop up, but the man ripped his gun back out of his holster as he tried to get to his feet. One eye was swollen shut and the other streaming with pained tears. 

"Thor!" Steve begged. "Let's just go! Come on!"

Thor didn't need another look at the panicked cop waving his gun around. He dashed for his goatbike, still lying where he'd left it. He put on his helmet, started the bike with a grumble and rode it the scant feet to where the others were standing. Natasha climbed on behind him, and Steve got on behind her. Natasha seemed tiny, and squirmed to get more comfortable, turning her head to breath easier so that her cheek was pressed between Thor's shoulderblades while Steve could rest his chin against her hair. The fainted officer shivered and started to sit up.

"Remember to lean into the corners," Thor's voice came muffled through his helmet, and then the bike growled at the strain and took off after the jeep.


	8. Steve

Steve had never been on a motorbike before, let alone cramped on the back without a helmet. Every time they weaved around a slow car he thought he was going to die. It wasn't even a little bit comfortable. Natasha's hair kept blowing into his mouth, his eyes stung from the wind and his arms were getting shaky from holding on for so long. He was intensely relieved when they pulled up outside the ER. He tumbled off and Natasha had to bend over her knees to keep herself upright while Thor parked the goatbike against the cycle stands. 

"I bags Tony's car on the way back," said Steve.

"I'll take a donkey cart over that ride again," Natasha added. 

"You are both braver than that, I'm sure," Thor laughed.

Natasha scrubbed her hands over her face. "Oh God. I broke a policeman's nose. I broke his nose. Oh my God."

"Sh!" Steve waved her down. "You can freak out about it later."

He couldn't see Tony's jeep parked anywhere nearby. Inside, the man at the ER desk said he'd been working for three hours and no one had come in fitting the description of Tony, Clint and Bruce. They sat down on the waiting area while Natasha texted Clint, 'Where r u?' 

"Maybe they went in the main doors and went to find Clint's Poppa," Natasha frowned to herself.

"I thought Clint's Poppa was head nurse in oncology?"

“Well it’s not like he’s going to tell Bruce to fuck off because he doesn’t have cancer,” Natasha rolled her eyes.

Steve was knotting his hands so tightly it was starting to hurt. He forced himself to relax and looked over at Thor, slumped into the plastic chair beside him. Thor mumbled. "What if Tony was speeding and they got in an accident? What if something happened to Bruce?"

"I'm sure no news is good news," Steve wasn’t sure how he got his voice to sound so calm, but he was pretty proud of himself. He patted Thor's hunched shoulder. "They must have decided not to go to the hospital after all. Bruce will be fine."

"Clint's phone is going straight to voicemail," said Natasha. Steve’s couldn’t stop his hands balling into fists once again. He felt so stretched he wasn’t sure his brain was even attached to his body anymore.

"Maybe he's calling his parents," said Thor.

"Maybe he's out of battery," added Steve.

"And maybe they've been arrested by the FBI for assaulting police officers?" Natasha asked sourly, dialing another number and putting the phone to her ear. "Oh, listen, that's Tony's voicemail too. That settles it. They've been arrested because I choked out a cop."

 _"Sh!"_ Steve repeated, glancing around to check that no one was staring at them funny. An old couple sat a few seats along and there was a noisy family on the seats backing directly on theirs, but that group was concerned with the screaming infant in their midst rather than the plotting teens behind them. A balding man in a trim, black suit strode through the automatic doors and Steve flinched at the thought that he might be a police officer, but he headed past the receptionist without speaking to the man and Steve relaxed. 

A split second later, he felt nausea surge in his gut. He grabbed Natasha and Thor by the scruffs of their necks and pushed them down against the seats so there was a row of plastic chairs and the noisy family blocking them from the reception area.

"What? What?" Natasha hissed.

Steve could barely find the breath the speak. He whispered, "The van driver is right behind us."

"Where?" Thor bared his teeth and started to raise his head, but Steve dragged him back down. Natasha slid off the seat and crouched down so she didn't have her head pressed almost against Steve's hip. She peered between two chairs at the gathering Steve had glimpsed in the far doorway that lead deeper in the hospital. He saw her eyes widen.

"You see him?" Steve whispered. "There's four of them in black, he's the one at the front with the black hair-"

"They're talking to Mr Coulson," Natasha whimpered. Steve had never heard Natasha sound so truly and completely unbalanced. 

"Who?"

"Our substitute teacher," she twisted to stare at Steve as if begging Steve to explain it to her. "Our friggin' teacher is involved in this."

Steve wriggled off the seat so he could turn around and look through the gap. Sure enough, the balding guy who'd just arrived - apparently Mr Coulson - had waylaid the group of black-clad assailants that Steve had recognised from Bruce's aborted kidnapping. A moment later, the receptionist jumped as Mr Coulson's voice broke across the waiting room.

"You should _never_ have gone in there without me! Someone could have been killed!"

Steve blinked. His skin felt clammy and his breathing was shallow. These people were doing their business in broad daylight, in the middle of a public hospital. Whatever had happened to Bruce... it wasn't a secret, it wasn't some kind of crude criminal plot to ransom him back to his parents for money... it was the people in charge. Maybe Dr Walters was in on it too. Who the hell could they trust if these bastards had spies in the school system? 

The leader of the van-kidnappers had narrowed his eyes and muttered something. Steve could just make out Mr Coulson’s snarled reply. “You thought he was changing? You _thought?_ We have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the incidents can occur while he’s awake. Short of banging his fists on the ground and screaming _‘I am metamorphosing from anger’_ , he should have been left alone!” 

Two of the kidnappers behind the driver shifted uncomfortably, and one of them said something mutinously.

“Oh, yes? Who stuck their nose in my operation?” Mr Coulson was jabbing the driver in the chest with his forefinger. "Tell me. Who gave you. The order."

Before the driver could reply, however, he was distracted by his phone. "Agent Coulson," he listened for moment, not breaking eye contact with his subordinate. "Uhuh. Thanks," he hung up and gestured to the rest of the black-clad group. "Natasha sent a text a couple of minutes ago that pinged off the nearest cellphone tower. We're still working on the GPS but they're in the hospital somewhere."

Steve looked at Natasha and she sucked in a breath and covered her mouth as if they might have heard. She looked down at the phone in her hand and without hesitation flipped it over and ripped out the battery. Steve fumbled for his so he could do the same, looking back towards Coulson and the kidnappers. The substitute teacher was glancing around the room with small frown, but then he turned back to the van driver. 

"Find them. Do not scare them off again," he said firmly. He turned and put his phone to his ear as he walked briskly out again. The van driver barked something to his men and they crowded back into the hospital, leaving the receptionist staring after them.


	9. Clint

Clint had never seen someone die. He'd never even seen a dead person before. His grandma had died when he was twelve but when Dad and Poppa took him to the funeral home he'd refused to go and look at the body because at the time he'd been watching too many horror movies and thought all dead bodies looked like the evil corpse from _The Mummy_. He didn’t know how to deal with the possibility of people dying in front of him. But he also didn't know how to prevent it.

"Bruce," he said. "Look at me, dude. Bruce?"

Bruce was still staring out the back window of the jeep. There were veins standing up blue and thick on his neck and cheeks, and his skin was so bloodless that in the grey winter's light it looked green. Every few seconds his body shuddered and his muscles tensed as if he was having a seizure. As Tony put on a burst of speed and started to turn the corner, Bruce's eyes followed the scene of violence behind them and finally turned to Clint. He looked like he was seeing Clint for the first time.

"They shot Natasha," he said numbly. 

Clint had heard the gunshot too, and it had just about given him a fucking heart attack, but Natasha had been on her feet when he glimpsed her through the jeep's window. He grabbed both of Bruce's hands. "Natasha's fine, they're all fine," he said firmly, though he had no fucking clue whether their friends were handcuffed or unconscious or bleeding onto pavement. All he really knew was that Natasha had told him to keep Bruce calm, and that was what he was going to do. "Let's think about you for a second, bro. They don't need our help."

"Are you sure?" Bruce asked. His body clenched again, his spine curving forward, and Clint winced as the fierce grip tightened around his fingers. 

"Sure I'm sure. Natasha's fan-fucking-tastic, and Steve's talking to the police and fixing this shit, I saw him," Clint lowered his head to catch Bruce's eyes. "You still with me?"

"I think it's happening again," Bruce rasped. He squeezed his eyes closed. His grip was getting tighter and tighter. 

"No, no, you stay with me, Bruce," Clint begged. Pain lanced through his hands and he suddenly realised he couldn't get free. "Bruce, that's fucking hurting me, Bruce--"

From the front seat, Tony yelled, "Hydrogen! Helium! Lithium! Come Bruce, you know these - Beryllium!"

The pain in Clint's hand rose to a crescendo as he felt a snap ripple along his arms. He bit down on his lip and gave a wordless yell against his closed lips. 

"Boron," Bruce whispered, as Tony echoed them after him. "Carbon. Nitrogen."

"That's it, Bruce, Oxygen. Fluorine."

"Neon," Bruce said a little louder. "Sodium."

The veins in his neck sunk down into the skin and blood rushed back into his face, erasing that hideous, sickly tinge. His shoulders and fists relaxed a little, and Clint jerked away and clutched his hands to his chest. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, Jesus, fuck-"

"Magnesium," Tony chorused with Bruce. "You okay, buddy?" 

"I think my finger's fucking dislocated," Clint groaned. His little finger on the left hand was blossoming with bruises and when he probed it with his other hand the pain sent black ink across the back of his eyeballs. 

"I was actually talking to Bruce," Tony glanced back briefly over his shoulder. "Christ, seriously? What have you got, porcelain joints?"

"Fuck off," Clint breathed through the dizziness and then shuffled closer to Bruce again. "His grip... I don't know... Bruce?" 

"I think I'm okay," said Bruce, slowly letting out a large lungful of air. 

Clint noticed their surroundings at last. "Tony! You're going the wrong way, dude!"

"Nope," said Tony. "We're not going to the hospital."

"I feel better," continued Bruce, not listening to either of them. "I think the drug's wearing off."

"It's been ten minutes, and you are going to the hospital," Clint clapped his good hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Tony, take us to the ER."

"Not doing, Boss," Tony shook his head. "The hospital's the first place they'll look."

"They?" Clint barked. Bruce was bent over his knees, rubbing his temples. "Those kidnappers? They're halfway to the fucking state line by now, Tony, you can't seriously think they're going to double back for another fucking crack at it!"

"No," Tony looked back again, and Clint winced as his steering wavered just a fraction before he turned back to the road and straightened the jeep up. "Put this together, Clint, these people had to be following Bruce all day waiting for a chance to strike, but why today? Because Bruce's mom called Dr Walters and cancelled his appointments. That was their way of keeping a lid on things, but Bruce blew the lid off one too many times, and I'm telling you--"

"You're fucking insane," Clint tried to laugh through the boulder in his throat. He didn't believe a word Tony was saying, but Tony was driving and Tony was always in charge and Clint didn't know how to help Bruce without Tony. 

"--I'm telling you!" Tony dragged back Clint's attention with a sharp gesture. "And Maria Hill is involved. You gotta trust me."

"Where are you taking us?" Clint asked. Bruce made a mumbling, wordless noise and Clint rubbed the knot of solid muscle between his blades.

"I'll tell you if you do one thing for me," said Tony. He was reaching into his pocket with only an elbow steadying the steering wheel. "Get your phone, Bruce's too, switch them off and take out the batteries."

"You're fucking kidding me."

Tony was disembowelling his own mobile without taking his eyes off the road. Clint took out his battered smartphone. "You need a screwdriver to get the battery out of this model," he said mutinously. 

"Then take the SIM card out or just throw it out the damn window, Clint, this is not a psychological experiment!" 

Clint muttered curses under his breath and did as he was told. At soon as the phone was off he realised he needed to text Natasha and tell her about Tony's change of plan, but then it occurred to him that Tony would probably tell him they were bugging their phones or something. Clint slumped back into the jeep's cushions and childishly propped his knees up against the back of Tony's seat. His finger hurt so hard he could almost hear it like a ringing in his ears. 

They pulled into Bruce's street and Clint pulled his friend's arm around his shoulders as they got out of the car. Bruce leaned into his support but could at least coordinate his feet better than when they'd got into the jeep. Maybe he was right, maybe the sedative was wearing off, though as a nurse's son Clint would still have said that was highly unlikely. 

Bruce’s mother, Jan Graystone, greeted them at the door. The sight of her baby boy slung half across Clint's shoulders nearly sent her into hysterics, but at least she let them in quickly enough. Jan had always been grey-haired and dowdy-clothed, working as an office lady at a preschool until she'd retired last year. Clint knew how she doted on her only child, and felt pretty damn guilty to be bringing him home in such a state.

"Mom," Bruce croaked as Clint and Tony lowered him onto the olive green sofa. "I'm okay. I didn't quite go there. Can you get my pills, please?"

"Do not take any more fucking sedatives, you idiot!" Clint dropped down into the seat opposite him, clutching his sore hand to his chest. "You don't know what's already in your body!"

"I have it under control, Clint."

Bruce's voice was clearer and calmer than Clint had heard it for weeks now. He shut his mouth. Tony was pacing behind the sofa, arms folded and face tensed with what was clearly too much brainpower whirring away behind his eyes. Bruce said evenly, "Neither of you tell my Mom what happened. Not a word."

Tony looked very ready to ignore his pleas, but when Jan came in a moment later he didn't say anything. Bruce took the tiny screw-top bottle from her and swallowed two pills with the glass of water she passed him. He let out a long breath. "I have this under control. I have this under control," he whispered. 

"You shouldn't be taking those," Clint warned again. He couldn't help himself. 

Jan looked at him, and the expression on her face was full of pity. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to interpret that. Then she spotted the growing bruise on his hand. "Clint, sweetie, what have you done to yourself?"

"Oh, er, um-”

"It's my fault, Mom, we were just playing around and I stepped on his hand by accident," Bruce said with a convincing impression of overwhelming anguish. He mouthed 'sorry' to Clint over his mother's shoulder. 

"I think it's fu-... friggin' dislocated," Clint said. Tony came over and crouched by the chair, eager to inspect the injury. Tony agreed that it looked friggin’ dislocated. 

"I can try to pop it back in for you," Tony said, with a bit too much enthusiasm in his voice. "I watched a video of it on YouTube."

"That's not a good idea. We should take you to the ER," Jan said.

"No, man, I'll fix it," Clint waved her off. "You just gotta bend it - fuck, fuck, ow - and then apply a steady pull like-"

The joint of his finger realigned with a wet crack. Clint gritted his teeth and moaned the five worst swears he knew. Jan shuddered and excused herself. 

Tony gaped at him, "Dude, how many times have you done that to yourself?"

"It's pretty common-" Clint frowned, blinking through the adrenaline rush his body had injected into his veins. "Well, I've never actually seen it done before. It was..." he tried to think. It had seemed to be obvious at the time, but he'd never even broken a bone before. He wasn't sure how he'd known what to do. Maybe Dad had described it to him once - yeah, that was probably it. He stopped thinking about it when Jan came back with a first aid kit and quickly splinted the swollen pinky to his ring finger with tape, which sent new jolts of pain down his hand, but it felt better once it couldn’t move around as much. 

In the familiar warmth of Bruce's lounge, with the distant smell of cleaning products and the herb garden on the window, the events of only an hour before were already distant. Clint could remember the confusion giving way to dizzying shock as he’d watched Bruce dragged into the van right in front of him, and remember how angry he’d been at his own body when he couldn’t follow the speeding van. He could see in his mind Steve running like an Olympian across the park, could remember the clutch of a vice around his lungs when they'd reached the scene and Bruce was lying limp and pale in Thor's arms, the fear and horror when the officers had tried to arrest the wrong people, the blank white sound of the gunshot - but it was like he'd been watching it on film. Everything was fine now. They were safe at Bruce's house and Jan would look after them. 

Tony went upstairs and brought down Bruce's laptop. He sat himself cross-legged in front of the coffee table and went into a kind of trance as he looked up god-knew-what and muttered something about 'Stark' and 'outside the constitution'. Clint thought of the red-headed woman who had been at Tony's house and wondered what Tony wasn't telling them, but then Jan brought them all hot chocolate and Clint settled into watching Bruce sit and stare at the wall. 

Clint was just downing the last of his mug when there came the sound of a puttering motorbike in the drive. Tony raised his head, and Thor's booming voice confirmed arrival of the others. The loud thumping at the door - Steve, probably, who still didn't know his new strength - was answered by Jan, and their three friends piled into the living room.

"Oh, thank you God," Steve clasped his hands and looked at the ceiling. 

Natasha went to kneel on the couch beside Bruce, not speaking, but touching his hair gently as he smiled up at her. Clint felt himself relax at her mere presence. As long as they were together, he and Nat could deal with anything. He was not going to let Tony’s paranoia split them up again.

"How'd you find us?" Tony shut the laptop and stood up. 

"When you weren't at the hospital, Steve suggested Tony was freaking out about conspiracies," Thor explained, perching on the arm of Clint's chair. It creaked in warning. "We thought you'd go either here or Tony's house, and we guessed right." 

"Tony was right about everything," Natasha's voice slid in under Thor's baritone. She was looking at each of them at turn. "Tell them," she said to Steve.

Clint felt his head start to spin as Steve talked. He told them what they’d missed after Natasha’s assault on the police officers and then gave them what seemed like a mad story about overhearing the kidnappers at the hospital. For most of it Clint listened in silence, but he turned to Natasha to confirm the identity of Mr Coulson. When she nodded, he bowed his head and rested his forehead on his knuckles. 

“He was asking about Bruce,” he muttered.

“Come again?” Tony turned towards him.

“He was asking about Bruce,” Clint raised his head. “You remember, Nat? He subbed in on Monday and said he’d seen Bruce in AP stats and he wasn’t looking well.”

“I didn’t have stats on Monday,” Bruce said hesitantly. 

“Of course you didn’t,” Clint laughed, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “This is fucking ridiculous. Why? If Tony’s right, why would the FBI or CIA or whoever the fuck these people are, be so obsessed with Bruce?”

“You think it’s just Bruce?” Tony growled.

Steve took half a step forward. His hands were flexing open and closed by his sides. “That’s enough, Tony,” he snapped. “We all know you’ve got more going on in your head than the rest of us can understand, but it can’t be that hard to explain. Tell us what you know.”

“Alright, fine, maybe it’s time,” Tony spread his arms in a half-bow, stepping away so he could look at everyone in the room. “Huh? You all want to know? You all keen?”

“Just talk, Tony,” Natasha said sharply. 

“Then let’s get the basic facts straight first. No one in this room has ever met their biological parents. Got it?”

That hadn’t been what Clint had expected. He glanced up at Thor, who shrugged at him in return. 

“Um, what about me and Bruce?” Steve frowned. 

“I said everyone,” Tony waved his arms as if beckoning them in. “We all know I am adopted. But we don’t know Bruce is adopted. And yes, I suspect you too, though you’re the one I don’t have proof for yet.”

“Tony, please stop,” whispered a soft voice behind him. Tony turned and hurried to sit down on the back of the sofa. Jan Graystone stood in the doorway, holding a tray with three more cups of hot chocolate and a plate of crackers. She crouched and put it on the ground, her shoulders shaking. 

“Mom!” Bruce was by her side in a moment, helping her straighten up again. His brows tightened and he bared his teeth at Tony. “What the fuck, dude? I’m not adopted.”

Clint looked at Jan gripping the doorframe and knew from the shock in her wrinkled face that Tony was right. Shit. This was a day of weirdness, that was for fucking sure. He chewed on the thumbnail of his good hand, pulling his feet up onto the chair. They’d just got Bruce calm and happy, and now Tony thought he could pull this out like a bunch of flowers from his sleeve? 

“Sweetheart,” Jan said, pinching the bridge of her nose and clutching for Bruce’s sleeve.

“Mom-” Bruce looked down at her. His jaw hung slack as she avoided looking at him, her lips pressed together. Clint saw Bruce’s expression shift as he realised it was true. Bruce had never been that good at hiding his emotions. 

Bruce looked at Tony, who to his credit was flushing and lost for a way to fix the situation. And then Bruce growled and threw himself at Tony, one fist drawing back and smashing across Tony’s cheek. Jan gave a shriek, “ _Bruce!_ ”, as Tony fell backwards onto the couch, almost into Natasha’s lap. Before Bruce could get another blow in, Steve and Thor were on him and pinning his arms by his side. Natasha pulled Tony away and climbed over him to put herself between him and Bruce, reaching one hand and pressing it to Bruce’s chest with her eyes narrowed in fury. 

Tony touched his cheek as a faint redness blossomed across it. He started to get up and Natasha pinned him where he was with her elbow, shooting him a glare that should by any rights have been fatal. Clint dashed across the room to get a hold of poor Jan and lead her to the chair to sit down. 

“Sweetheart,” Jan begged. “Calm down before it happens again!”

Bruce had been struggling – completely vainly, given that Steve and Thor weren’t even straining to hold him back – but at the sound of his mother’s voice he stopped and pulled away until they let him go. 

“Fuck you, Tony,” he spat over his shoulder. “How was that your job to tell me? Huh?”

“He shouldn’t have to,” Jan said, reaching out one hand to her son. Bruce went and took it, rubbing his thumb over the back of her knuckles. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “We should have told as soon as you could talk.”

“But everyone’s always saying I look like Granddad,” Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, running his hand through his thick curls. “I don’t get it.”

“None of the family knew, and your Granddad was just a coincidence. People see what they expect to see,” Jan sighed. “We’d waited for you for ten years, Bruce. We thought it would never happen. IVF didn’t work. We were on the lists with all the adoption agencies, but no one ever chose us. Then the agency called us one night and brought you over right away, before we even had time to think about it, and you were so perfect we knew you’d always been ours. We just didn’t know how to tell you how it happened.”

“The agency?” Tony sat up at last, though still under Natasha’s supervision. “Are you sure it was your adoption agency?”

“Of course. They had the paperwork and everything.”

To Clint’s surprise, it was Thor who spoke up. “They just handed him over? The same night?”

Jan’s lower lip shook and Bruce tightened his grip on her hand. “They said Bruce’s adoption to another family had fallen through at the last minute. I know it should have taken months, but we’d already had our background checks done by the agency and lots of legal stuff. They said this sort of thing happened from time to time.”

“They,” Clint echoed, glancing at Tony. “They, they, they.”

Thor was shifting from foot to foot, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them again and shoving them into his jeans pockets. When Natasha glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, he muttered, “My parents told me the same story. I always thought it was a bit weird.”

“So did mine,” Tony explained heavily. He clicked his jaw and winced. “Huh. Never been punched before. I always thought Natasha would be my first.”

“I’d have broken your nose,” Natasha said coolly. “Well? I presume you interrogated your Mom and Dad pretty intensely, Tony?”

“Yeah. I only asked for the story a couple of months ago, when I was starting to get suspicious,” Tony touched his cheek again and made a pained face. “They’d never asked questions. They were just glad to get their baby. I contacted the agency and found their liaison, and it turns out she didn’t even know I’d existed. She said she’d been contacted by my parents sixteen years ago asking for their names to be dropped off the list, but my parents said that never happened.”

“What does this all have to do with,” Clint glanced at Jan and Bruce, “you know. What happened today, and Bruce’s… psych issues.”

“Yup, I think I’m getting to that, give me a mo,” Tony ran his tongue over his teeth.

“Oh my God, Tony, your beautiful face is fine,” Steve barked out, making strangling motions towards Tony’s neck. “Can you get on with it?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Shockingly, Steve, I was in fact buying some time in the hopes that I could explain this to all of you in relative privacy. As in, without relatives.”

Bruce tugged on Jan’s hand. “Mom, is that okay? I’ll come and talk to you as soon as I can.”

Jan looked like she thought it was definitely not okay at all, but after a moment she got up and went to the door.

As soon as it was closed behind her, Tony picked up the nearest full cup of hot chocolate and drank half it in one go. He paced to the window, looked outside and then drew the curtains on the darkening afternoon. “Obviously, the next step was to get a hold of my birth certificate, which is supposed to be sealed until I’m eighteen, but I’m sure you all know how I feel about waiting for service,” he turned around with a less than pleasant smile on his face. “And loads of states have digital records of pretty much everything post two thousand and one. Problem was I didn’t know what state I was born in,” he shrugged and sipped the rest of the hot chocolate. “So I had to hack into pretty much all of them.” 

“Get to the point, Tony,” Steve grumbled.

“I am, seriously, you’re such a nag, Steve,” Tony raised his arms. “Sorry, sorry! I’m kidding! You know I love you. Anyway, so then I have access but no idea what hospital I was born in, what name I was registered under, yadda, yadda – so I go after the agency my parents used to adopt me. And there’s a record. It’s right there in their servers, but no one I talked to knew about it. Someone else came in and entered Tony Alvarez into their database, like some kind of,” Tony’s hands moved aimlessly, “breadcrumb trail for me to follow if I’d only been looking there from the beginning. With a registry number that took me straight to a Missouri birth clinic database with crappy firewalls.” 

“So what did it say?” Clint asked. “Was Tony Stark your dad? Why did you have to send your DNA barcode to the federal database to find Pepper Potts?”

“What?” Bruce and Steve looked over.

“Long story,” said Natasha. “Carry on, Steve.”

“It isn’t only what I found in my birth certificate,” Tony put his empty mug down and reached for his schoolbag, which had been kicked under the table at some point. He pulled out a wad of paper and passed the top sheet of paper to Natasha, “It’s what I found in hers,” he gave the next printout to Thor, “and his,” then to Clint and Bruce, “and theirs,” and finally to Steve, “and yours.”

Clint stared down at the piece of paper in his hand. None of the details seemed to fit. He felt like this had to be a cheap photoshop job, except that a joke like this was infinitely more poorly-timed than Tony’s comedic genius usually managed. 

“I don’t get it,” said Steve. “What’s supposed to be wrong with this?”

“They all look like yours,” Natasha said quietly. She hadn’t given hers more than a cursory glance. Clint realised with a jolt that she and Tony had discussed this before. Her eyes were on Steve now. “They’re all the same, except for the hospitals being in six different states.”

“What do you mean?” Steve leaned over to look at Natasha’s sheet. 

“Thor Hill,” Thor read with furrowed brows. “Mother: Maria Hill. Father: unknown.”

“This is Steve’s birthday,” Bruce said. Clint would have made a crack about how sweet it was that Bruce knew their birthdays, but his throat seemed to have filled with sand. 

Tony threw his own birth certificate onto the table with the hot chocolate and crackers. “They’re all Steve’s birthday. They’re all Steve’s mom. These certificates are lies. We were meant to find them, so that we could find Maria Hill once we came of age and we started asking questions. I don’t know why and I don’t know whether us being friends was part of the plan, but I strongly suspect the plan has since gone all to shit anyway.”

“It gets weirder,” said Natasha. “Tony found that his DNA matches a missing person case filed only a few weeks after Steve’s birthday. The woman who filed it says he looks just like the missing dude, except the guy would be in his late fifties by now. Tony wants the rest of us to do a cheek swab to see if the rest of us have any long lost twins hiding out in the records.” 

Steve grabbed Tony’s printout, comparing it to its own. “No, this is stupid. Someone’s dicking you about, Tony. My Mom would have told me.”

“Told you what?” Tony asked. “That we’re the product of some government experiment in human cloning?” Tony pointed at Bruce. “That they put something in his blood that’s blowing his brain up one nightmare at a time, turned Steve into Arnie Schwarzenegger the second his balls dropped, and gifted a sixteen year old girl with the kung-fu skills to take out two armed police officers?” Tony’s voice was rising as he pointed at Natasha. “Maybe it goes even further, maybe explains why I built my first radio before I could read and why Nat’s been in therapy for her Patrick Bateman impressions since she was two.”

“Don’t speak for me,” Natasha growled. 

“I miss your industrial espionage stage,” Bruce looked up from his certificate. “I don’t think you get how much your prying affects other people, Tony.”

“Information is the tool you make it,” Tony intoned. “A weapon. A shield.”

“So this is your idea of protecting us?” Clint laughed. He felt a little tipsy. “Tony, you gotta learn to keep your secrets under your mattress.” 

“These aren’t my secrets,” Tony raised his eyebrows and glanced around the room. “You all know my secrets. You all know I’m gay. You all know I’m allergic to penicillin. You all know I post homoerotic fanvids about the X-Men on the Internet and learned Spanish just so my Grandma would give me extra cash on my birthdays. These are someone else’s secrets and they nearly got Bruce picked off by what looked like a bunch of KGB today, so how am I the only one taking – this shit – seriously?” 

“We’re trying, Tony,” Steve said. “We don’t all adapt as fast as you do.”

“Are you going to call your mother?” Thor asked Steve. “Do you think she’ll tell us the truth?”

“Unless she’s on the side of Mr Coulson and the KGB,” Natasha pointed out.

“My Mom is not working with those animals who tried to take Bruce,” Steve snarled. 

“Is she really your mom?” Bruce asked. Steve huffed a breath out his nose, but Bruce shook his head. “That’s the first thing you have to ask her.”

“These people are coming for us _now_ ,” Tony argued, jabbing his finger at the floor “And so are the police, considering how many people must have filmed Nat’s little stunt, not to mention Steve and Thor’s heroic rescue—”

He stopped. Clint saw his eyes widen and an expression of pure bliss spread across his face. It was the look he got when he’d just had a brilliant idea for fixing a flaw in his latest refrigerator project. 

“Oh, shit,” he said, and pounced for the laptop. “Oh. _Oh_. Of course.”

“What?” Natasha demanded. “What is it?”

Tony’s fingers flew across the keys. He clicked on something and turned the computer around. There was a slightly blurred close-up of what looked like a distant war zone, except the storefronts and billboards were in English. In the foreground were a pair of blond, stocky men, one in blue and one with a fluttering red cloak, apparently wrestling with some inhuman soldiers. There were a couple of dark-clad figures in the background, one a man and the other a woman with a burst of red hair. The resolution wasn’t good enough to see their faces clearly.

“The Avengers,” said Tony breathlessly. 

Was that supposed to mean something to them? Clint stared with a feeling of growing hopelessness, trying to see what Tony was seeing. He tried to flex his dislocated finger, but it was swollen way beyond hope of closing into a fist, and then he jumped as they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Tony snapped the laptop closed. 

It was Jan, looking composed and holding the landline in her hand. “Kids, I have to interrupt,” she looked at Bruce and then at the rest of them. “You all okay?”

“We’re okay, Mom,” Bruce assured her.

“Well, Clint’s father is on the phone,” Jan held out the handset. “He sounds pretty worried.”

“I’ll take it,” Clint jumped up and grabbed the phone. The idea of hearing a trusted adult voice sounded like fucking heaven right now. 

“Don’t tell him where you are!” Tony called after him. “They might be monitoring-”

“If they’re bugging the phone then Jan’s already told them I’m here,” Clint pointed out as he put the handset to his ear and slid out the door, shutting it firmly behind him. Jan was watching from the kitchen, so he went under the stairs into Bruce’s bathroom and locked the door behind him. He sat on the edge of the bathtub and leaned against the wall.

“Hey,” he said. 

“Hey kid, you done something bad I should know about?” his Poppa asked down miles of cables. Clint could imagine him standing in the kitchen making dinner, waiting for Clint and Dad to get home at odd hours. Poppa was bald and had a bit of a gut these days, but he’d worked construction since the garage had closed down and he was still the most energetic guy Clint knew. 

“No,” Clint said defensively. Dad and Poppa were both Long Island natives and Clint sometimes fell into speaking their accents when he was home. “I woulda told ya.”

“Well I just had five guys knocking on our door, Clint, who walked like fucking cops and had badges like fucking cops looking for you and your friends, and then I find you ain’t answering your god-damn phone. Care to explain that to me?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Poppa?” Clint jumped up like the bathtub had given him an electric shock. Bruce’s tea-tree oil shampoo tumbled off the windowsill. “They came to our house?”

“Yes they fucking came to our house, now are you going to tell me why they came to our house and what the hell they wanted from you? I just called the Alvarezes’ and their housekeeper said she had a visit from these cops an hour ago, and then I called the Hills’ and Maria said Steve hasn’t come home but the same cops came to her place ten minutes ago. You and Nat had better not have got Steve mixed up in something, Clint.”

“Me and Nat?” Clint yelled back. “Why d’you assume me and Nat are the fucking perps?” he took a breath. “Okay, Dad, I swear to you that I haven’t done anything wrong and Natasha might have done something wrong but it was only in self-defence, so the point is, don’t freak out if I’m not home tonight, okay? I’ll be at Steve’s house sorting this out. You got me?”

“No, I don’t got you! Tell me what’s going on!”

Clint took a deep breath. How could he even begin to explain? Poppa said, “Clint, you know we’re gonna back you up whatever happens, right?”

“Poppa,” Clint scratched his nose. “Was there anything… weird about my adoption?”

“What? Is this relevant? No, it was all legal, if that’s what you’re asking-”

“How long did it take? Between finding out and finishing the paperwork?”

There was a pause, and then Poppa said, “It was just a couple of days, I think. Faster than we expected. They said there’d been a weird situation where the people who were chosen first had cancelled at the last second and we ended up next on the list, or something like that, we didn’t ask too many questions.”

“Did you meet my birth mother?”

“No, you know that, we never knew anything about your bio-parents,” Poppa sounded more confused than worried now. “You were dropped off by someone from the agency. We signed all the papers on the same night and that was it.” 

Clint had seen photos of his first night at home. Poppa had hair in them. Clint was just a pink, squalling face in a yellow blanket, but Poppa and Dad were smiling like it was their first Christmas ever. They’d never lied to him about anything. But someone had lied to them. Suddenly Clint was angry, more angry than about Bruce getting kidnapped or the cops trying to arrest Steve or even at the man who called himself Mr Coulson and had come into their lives and watched them for some purpose that none of them knew. Clint was fucking furious that these fuckers had walked into his dads’ lives – and into Jan’s, and Mr and Mrs Alvarez, and Thor’s hippie parents, and Natasha’s mess of a family – and given them hope all that they were getting a normal kid. 

“Okay,” he croaked. “Thanks. Listen, I really gotta go, Poppa, but we’re gonna fix this.”

“If you hang up, kid, I will take your computer for a month.”

“I love you, and Dad too,” Clint said. 

“Clint, don’t you dare-”

He took the phone away from his ear and cut off the call. Then he unlocked the bathroom and ran back to the lounge where the others were waiting. Everyone was clustered around Steve, who had apparently put the battery back in his phone and was speaking to someone at the other end. 

“Okay, Mom, well, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Steve said, raising his eyes to meet Clint’s.

“We have to leave,” Clint said. “They know where we live and they’re going door to door looking for us. My poppa said five guys claiming to be cops have been to Tony’s, mine and Steve’s house already and this is the next closest one.”

Steve stared at him, and then looked down at the phone in his hand. Clint could hear Maria Hill’s distant voice through the speaker, asking Steve if he was still there. He thumbed the hangup button and put the phone down on the coffee table quickly. 

“She didn’t say cops had been to the house,” Steve said huskily. “She just kept asking me to come home and talk about what was bothering me.”

“She’s in on it,” Thor stood up. “She sent you to Dr Walters, remember?”

“You can cry about it later, buddy, we gotta go _now_ ,” Tony slapped Steve on the back and grabbed his backpack, shoving Bruce’s laptop into it. “Come on kids, let’s move it.”

Natasha snatched up her bag and passed Bruce his bottle of pills. “If they’re working with the cops, they’ll put an APB out on the jeep.”

“Well do you have another means of transport?” Tony asked. “And don’t say the goatbike, six of us balancing on each other’s shoulders is not going to be surreptitious.”

“I can hotwire any car more than twenty years old,” Clint said. When Bruce and Steve gaped at him, he shrugged. “Poppa was a mechanic. I know cars.”

Tony put up his hand, “Not that this new information doesn’t arouse me deeply, Clint, but they’ll be on the lookout for stolen cars.”

“You can take the Honda,” said Jan from behind them. Tony started and spun around.

“Sorry, Tony talks a lot louder than he think he does,” she said.

“Mrs Graystone, we can’t involve you in this,” Steve murmured.

“Take the car,” Jan fumbled for the keys in her wallet. There was something cold and desperate in her voice. “It seats seven. If we don’t report it missing, they won’t be looking for it.”

“Mom,” Bruce squeaked.

Jan grabbed him and pulled him into her arms, clutching him so tight her nails disappeared into his sweater. She blinked away tears and eyed Clint and Natasha. “Look after my son.”

“We’ve got nowhere to go,” Natasha said.

Thor clicked his fingers, “My uncle has a cabin on the Canadian side of Spednic lake. If someone distracts my parents, there’s a ring of keys in my dad’s study that’ll get us into the cabin, the boathouse and the Osprey inside it.”

“Okay, Natasha, Clint and Thor take the jeep. Nat is the only one allowed to drive it,” Tony added, jabbing Clint in the chest. “Get to Thor’s house and get the keys, and if you get stopped by the police, just cooperate, do not break any of them. I’ll take Jan’s car and meet you at the bike trails off the I-95.”

“That’s miles out, why there?” Clint asked.

“Because there’s dozens of four-wheel-drive tracks around there, and plenty of people leave their cars to go camping for the weekend,” Tony handed Natasha the keys. “If we dump the jeep there, no one will find it without a full search.”

“That assumes we can get out of town,” Natasha said dubiously. 

“Are we seriously talking about running away to Canada?” Bruce moaned. “Is this truly, honestly the only option right now?”

“They stuffed you in a van and jabbed needles in you,” Steve said grimly. “I hate to say Tony’s right, but Tony’s right.”

“I’ve got a wireless USB stick in my glovebox,” Tony said. “Once we’re at the cabin I’ll use the laptop to contact Pepper Potts at Stark industries. She’ll help us. Now can we stop standing here waiting for the hit squad to crash through the windows? Move, people!”

As they reached the door, Natasha’s hand slid into Clint’s and squeezed tight. He saved her dignity by not looking at her and just squeezing back. He did glance over to see Bruce giving his mother one last hug, and wondered when he’d next get the chance to do the same for his parents.


	10. Bruce

There were no roadblocks on the way out of town. Bruce stood on a bramble-edged lawn at the edge of the pines and watch the purpling dusk while Tony fidgeted and rambled with increasing pitch and speed. The jeep carrying Thor, Clint and Natasha arrived almost half an hour late. It turned out the others had quickly picked up the keys, but then stopped at a supermarket for basic supplies. Tony almost threw a tantrum at their recklessness. 

"Christ, we went through the self-checkout and paid in cash," Natasha tried to puncture his anger. "Even if they put all our faces on the news, we didn't interact with a single person."

Tony drove his beloved jeep as far into the trees as he could while the Honda loaded up. Nobody talked much. Bruce ended up in the very back row with Steve, while Thor navigated from the front seat with Tony driving. Natasha and Clint immediately fell asleep on each other. Soon night became solid and the only signs of life outside were the occasional farmhouse. Steve's head started to nod against his chest. Bruce couldn't tell if his eyes were completely closed, but his breathing was even and peaceful. Bruce could faintly smell his ordinary Steve-smell - a bit sweaty, a bit too much spray-on deodorant, a bit of something else that Bruce couldn't identify except as 'Steve'. 

"Pinch me, I think I'm falling asleep," Tony said from the front of the car, talking to Thor. A moment later, "Ow! Damn, I think you took a chunk of my leg off!"

Bruce rested his forehead on the cool glass of the window. Outside, the edge of the headlights ran like ghosts over snow and scrub, the trees hemming them in. The world outside felt so far away that Bruce didn't even notice when his eyelids closed. Someone - might have been Clint - wheezed in their sleep. The road was just a tumbling rhythm somewhere below. 

_"Stick him! Stick him! Don't give him a chance to transform!"_

Bruce jerked upright, sucking in a breath as if he'd just escaped from drowning. His blood gushed through his heart and for a split second there was green behind his eyes, and then he blinked and his vision was clear. His head was pounding. He grabbed for his bag, his hands shuddering as he tried to get the cap off his medication and shake two pills into his hand. He swallowed them dry and they stuck in his throat. Then there was a hand on his wrist and he wrenched away so hard he cracked his head on the window before he realised it was just Steve.

"Woah, woah, you okay?" Steve whispered. Bruce glanced around. Clint and Natasha were still sleeping, and Thor hadn't even turned around. The pounding in his head began to recede, but the panic was still bubbling just beneath his skin.

"Water," he managed to croak.

Steve rummaged in the supermarket bag that was rolling around the floor of the car, cracked the top off a bottle of water and passed it to Bruce. He sloshed it into his mouth and the pills finally scraped down his throat. He slouched back against the seat, trying to control his breathing and settle his heart with the exercises that Dr Walters had taught him. 

"Nightmares?" Steve's voice was low to keep from waking the others, but it was strong enough to drive a little of the shaking from Bruce's muscles.

"Never got that far," he replied, staring out the window. "I shouldn't go to sleep. If you-know-what happens again, I might hurt someone."

"You've had your meds, and we're here to look after you," Steve soothed. "Get some rest. You'll feel better."

"You didn't see what I did to my walls," Bruce closed his eyes, trying to drive away the image of the men in black and the claustrophobia of the van. 

"If Mr Hyde comes out, I'll deal with him," Steve promised. "Didn't you see me at tryouts?" 

There was a wistful note in his voice. Bruce didn't need to ask why, though he'd been so wrapped up in his own problems he hadn't thought about it until now. Things had suddenly been looking so good for Steve. Running away didn't do much for your chances of getting into the football team. Rationally, Bruce knew Steve put his friends' safety and happiness far above some stupid school team, but a social step-up like that should have meant the world to him. It still felt like a kick in the gut to think of what Bruce’s friends was giving up because of their sudden fugitive status. 

Fugitives. It was the first time Bruce had considered the word. They weren't really... were they? They were just trying to stay safe from an unknown danger. Natasha had really hurt those police officers - that was bad, that was worse than Tony or the others had admitted - but the rest of them weren't going to get arrested or anything, right? Except for the part where Tony had fled the police and Thor was planning on stealing a boat. But... cops were the good guys. The government was the good guys. And they were just kids.

Bruce felt wide awake for the rest of the trip, though Steve drifted off again until they were bumping along a worn, forested road down to the edge of the lake. The road opened into a cleared park with picnic tables and barbecue shelters, and the edge of the lake sparkled in the distance, hemmed by a lengthy pier and a line of boat sheds. 

The air outside was icy, though the snow hadn't fallen here recently. Bruce stomped around the car with his hands under his arms to warm up his stress-exhausted muscles, while Steve gathered their supplies and Thor headed down to inspect the boat shed. Tony started gathering pinecones, winking at Bruce across the hood of the Honda. When Bruce came back around to the door side, he found Tony stacking the pinecones on the still-sleeping Clint and Natasha.

Bruce shook his head with a grin and headed over to help Thor. The shed was right at the edge of the bay, and the motorboat was inside where they had expected it, up on the dry planks. They found a heavy duty flashlight in a box of fishing tackle, opened the water-side doors and launched it onto the lake. The boat started after a few splutters and Thor nudged it over to the pier steps and slung a rope around the nearest post. He took the flashlight and shone it across the boats dials.

"We're pretty low on fuel," he worried.

"We could siphon some out of the car," Bruce suggested.

"Nah, the boat's a diesel engine, and the car's pretty low too," Thor climbed out onto the pier and held out a hand. "It'll get us across the lake and maybe back once. Beyond that, we'll just have to hope Tony's new lady-friend pulls through."

Somewhere in the direction of the Honda, there was a commotion, the thwap of hurled pinecones, and Tony's frantic yells of, "Mercy! Mercy!"

\---

The boat ride wasn't long, but it was damn cold. Bruce had worn his winter coats to the park, but against the wind it felt thinner than saran wrap. Only Thor at the wheel seemed unfazed. The rest of them cowered down against the stern. 

“Tony,” Natasha yelled, though she had to do it three times to get his attention. “Back at Bruce’s house, you figured something out. Care to fill us in?”

“What?” Tony yelled back.

“You found a picture on the laptop and then said something,” Bruce reminded him. “The… assaulters?” 

“The Avengers,” Tony’s eyes lit up. “They were a superhero team back in the twenty-tens. They disappeared around the time that we were all born. The official story is they were never found.”

“And you think this has something to do with us?” Natasha made an impatient moment with her hand. 

“The leader of the Avengers was Tony Stark,” Tony shouted over a fresh growl over the engine. Clint and Natasha glanced at each other, and Bruce was glad Steve looked just as confused. 

“The weapons mogul?” Steve asked. “Iron Man?” 

Tony nodded, and then shrugged. “I don’t get it yet either, but my DNA barcode matches Stark’s. And if I’m his twin, or his clone, or whatever, I think the rest of you might be the other missing Avengers.”

“Okay,” Steve said, tilting his head. “That’s… one theory.”

“I haven’t figured out which one Bruce is,” Tony pressed his balled fists to his mouth, and then muttered something too quiet for Bruce to hear, his gaze skipping aimlessly around the boat. Bruce rubbed his fingers against his temples. He wanted to get Tony talking while he was thinking. He loved listening to Tony think aloud, loved bouncing ideas back at him and pruning the wildest branches of Tony’s imagination. He wanted to help Tony solve this crazy day for the better. But at the same time he absolutely, completely, _utterly_ , didn’t want to know the truth.

The truth had kind of fucked him up today. He wasn’t a Graystone. He wasn’t his mother’s son. He was an experiment without a method, a result without a question, a guinea pig crawling in a maze he’d only just realised existed. And he’d dragged his friends into it with him.

"What I don't understand," Clint called above the rushing air, "is why everyone is superhuman except me. Natasha can beat up two armed cops, Tony's got a Nobel prize-winning brain, Steve and Thor would make Hitler cream himself, and Bruce has that thing where he can rip furniture apart in his sleep. My only special talent is failing biology."

"Maybe you're a late bloomer," Bruce said, glad for the distraction from his melancholy. "You might wake up one day as Hercules, like Steve did."

"You know, despite what you all keep saying, I do work out." Steve punched him on the arm - rather gently, though Bruce didn't blame him. 

"Jerking off doesn't count, Steve," Tony called. "Hey Clint, maybe instead of being Hercules you were designed to be a social infiltrator. _Sexually_ ," he hissed. "You bone better, faster, stronger."

"I'll believe that when I feel it," Natasha drawled. 

"I wouldn't cry as much if you wore a bag over your face," Clint snarked back. 

Tony leaned forward, "Wait, Nat, did you and Clint just say what I think you did?" 

"They did," Bruce confirmed. His gut dropped a second later. Were you allowed to talk about your friend's sex lives? He was pretty sure you weren't, even if you were just a little bit annoyed at them for not inviting you to the party. Oh man, he shouldn't have said that. He was such a useless friend. He hunched down and tried not to look at Natasha and Clint, who were sitting on either side of him.

"Don't get excited, Tony," Natasha said haughtily. "It's not a big thing."

"Why wasn't I _informed_ ," Tony complained. "We could have been _sharing notes_."

"Or you could skip that step and just _have_ me," Clint laughed. 

"Good lord, look at his eyes light up," Steve leaned forward. "Tony, come back to Earth, Tony."

“Why is this even interesting? Thor’s got a reputation like a bonobo, I swear, go ask him for stories,” Clint spread his arms.

“What? Are you talking about me?” Thor yelled.

“Talking about bits of you,” Tony hollered back. "We’re not all top of the football team like Thor, that’s precisely my point. You know what we need? An orgy. It is completely necessary to bring us back to the same page in the book of life. For the sake of social dynamics we should all be on equal footing or it could tear us apart. I demand group sex. Ay - ess - ay - pee," Tony said, a little dreamily.

"I'm in," said Bruce, before he could stop himself. Tony shot him a look that made him clamp his mouth shut. The silence, but for the quiet drone of the motor, was suddenly stifling. His brain grasped for a life-ring that seemed just out of reach. 

Then Natasha laughed, which was a rare event under any circumstances. "As long as I don't have to organise it or clean up, Tony can go wild as far as I'm concerned."

"Steve will clean up," Clint barked. "Steve's good like that."

"Hey! I'm not your mother," Steve complained.

" _Or are you_ ," Clint stage-whispered, widening his eyes and sweeping his hands in front of his face like a magician. "What if my birth certificate is a lie-e-e."

Bruce relaxed back against the fibreglass wall of the boat, letting the others trade jibes over his head. He started to forget the cold, with Natasha tucked against one side and Clint and Steve jostling the other. Thor looked back to complain that they were having too much fun without him, and Tony gave him a very explicit summary of what he'd missed. 

_Maybe it’ll be okay_ , thought Bruce.


	11. Bruce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much to all the readers! Please note the change in rating from gen to explicit, if that's not what you're here for and want to skip this chapter. I'm not saying it's good porn, I'm just saying, y'know. Orgy.

The cabin was a sunken, two-level thing squeezed between a low hill and a marsh-garnished stream that wound down to the lake. The toilet was a long-drop style a few feet past the side of the house, but inside the main building it was dry and clean, and there was a full generator that Tony managed to get working after only thirty minutes of cussing and abuse. The inside of the cabin had thirty-year-old décor, minimalist and dreary in greys and heavy lampshades. There were two four-person bedrooms and one communal room with a sink and a wood-burner stove, but not much furnishing. They hadn’t anticipated that, though Bruce supposed there hadn’t been much time for anticipation when they’d been fleeing town.

He and Steve got two pots of water boiling while Tony was fixing the generator, and soon enough they dished out pot noodles and instant coffee. There was a definite holiday air now, with giggles and grins from Thor and Clint and a lightness in Tony’s voice that showed even he was forgetting the dire warnings he’d been exuding earlier in the day. Natasha was cuttingly sarcastic about everything, which meant she was in a good mood, and Bruce knew Steve was happy as long as he was being useful. 

After dinner there was a race for the one sagging couch, which Natasha, Steve and Thor won, while the others had to make do with dragging over the wooden benches. Clint and Thor started a game of knucklebones with rocks they’d picked up from the stream, though it was less of a game and more of a constant argument about the rules. Tony took the laptop out and went tap-tapping away for about forty-five minutes without speaking, while Steve and Bruce talked about art history, the only paper they had in common between their two different schools. Natasha just watched everyone from beneath half-lidded eyes, her mouth twitching in the corner as the only sign when something amused her.

“Done,” Tony snapped the lid of the laptop shut and Thor jumped, spilling knuckle-stones across the floor. “I used every trick in my not-insignificant repertoire to keep that email between me and Miss Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. Now we just have to sit here in Canada and either get rescued,” he stretched his arms up, clicking his shoulders and leaning back against the bare wall, “or my genius kicks in post-coitally and I come up with a better plan.”

“Post-coitally?” Thor laughed. “Hands up who wants to sleep with Tony.”

There was a lot of laughter, but no hands. 

“He’s trying to instigate an orgy,” Natasha explained. “You missed it while you were driving the boat.”

“This is not a selfish endeavour, my friends,” Tony insisted, putting the laptop to one side and stretching his legs out in front of him. “I don’t even have to come. I can simply be your guide.”

There were a couple more chuckles, but Bruce looked up and found no one was meeting anyone’s eyes, and that Steve had rosettes growing on his cheeks. Thor was smiling slightly as he looked down at his hands, and Clint was suddenly very interested in lining up the knuckle-stones in exact size order. Only Natasha’s gaze was direct, and it was lined up on Tony’s face. There was no sneer in her lips, just an intense focus. 

She was daring Tony. And Bruce could see Tony just needed a little more push. 

He felt a bit daring himself. Oh, God. It had been such a weird day, and everyone else had been such a superhero, and Bruce hadn’t done anything to help anyone. And if he didn’t know who he was, that meant he could be anyone he wanted, right?

“Go on, Tony,” he said, licking his lips. “How do we start?” 

The stove crackled. The yellow bulb above them flickered in its out-of-date shade. Clint and Thor were watching properly now, though Steve still had his head bowed. Tony’s eyes flicked to each of them in turn, calculating, mechanising the situation. 

“Steve kisses Natasha,” he said, entwining his fingers behind his head like he was just ordering someone to bring him another cup of coffee.

There was a half second pause where anyone in the room could have tagged themselves out, and then Natasha twisted from her slump and knelt on the couch to put her hand on Steve’s chest. He’d raised his head but was otherwise completely still. Bruce was not entirely sure he was breathing.

“Nuh-uh, Nat,” Tony interrupted. “I said he kisses you.” 

“Why do they go first?” Clint asked. Bruce almost wanted to punch him for spoiling the mood, but he could tell Clint hadn’t really spoiled it. The momentum was already growing. A dark spark in Bruce told him, _Punch Clint? Really? Seems you’re a bit angry there, buddy…_

“Because they’re the prettiest,” Tony said smugly. “Steve.”

Steve’s tongue darted out and in again, and at last he raised one hand and cupped Natasha’s face, as if shielding her from the stares of the others in the room. He shifted where he sat, angling his body towards her, and pulled her in as he dipped into her. For a moment there was touch, but it was rigid and unyielding with Steve’s uncertainty. And then he relaxed against Natasha’s mouth and she moved. Though the only point of contact was their lips and Steve’s hand on her cheek, the movement started with her hips and rolled up the whole of her body until it condensed on the kiss. And as if she had imparted some knowledge with it, Steve moved in return. 

When they pulled apart, Bruce found he was breathing very quickly. 

Natasha smiled. It wasn’t secretive or mocking, but wide and real. Steve smiled back, and then looked at Tony. 

“Very nice,” Tony said. “Now you’re going to go down on her.”

Bruce knew this was way too fast, but he could tell from Tony’s voice that ‘too fast’ was part of the plan. Steve stammered, “I, uh, I haven’t… I don’t know how.”

“That’s alright. I’m going to tell you. Just wanted you both to be aware of what you’re getting into. I’m pouring the pot. You say if you wanna stop.”

Natasha pulled off her outer coat and wriggled back to lean her shoulders on the arm of the sofa, letting her legs fall apart. “I am not going to turn down free oral sex.” 

Steve nodded, and went to lean over Natasha, one hand sliding down her side from breast to hip. 

“Stop,” said Tony. He raised his hand. “Kneel in front of her.”

As Steve lowered himself to the wooden floor between Natasha’s hanging feet it occurred to Bruce to wonder where Tony would have learned to eat pussy, but he supposed that even Tony might not have known everything about himself once upon a time. Besides, he was Tony. If there was one thing he was good at it was research. 

“Slide your hands under her shirt,” Tony said quietly, “Then move down and undo her carefully.”

‘Careful’ was exactly the word that described Steve as he pushed Natasha’s T-shirt up and smoothed his palms across her belly. He was watching her face the whole time, as if waiting for her to wake him up, to reveal that it was all a joke, that it couldn’t be real. But she kept her eyes locked on his as his fingertips fumbled for the button of her jeans. 

“You can take them off fast as you like,” Tony added. 

Steve didn’t rise to the bait. He did things his own way, putting his hands on Natasha’s knees and gripping the denim. He edged her jeans down in half-inch increments, pausing to take her shoes off with equal care. Natasha had cheap, azure socks on beneath her black Chucks, maybe the last clean ones she’d found this morning. Steve didn’t take them off, just peeled away her jeans from the knees down.

Bruce swallowed. Natasha’s legs were thin and white, and Steve looked at them as if he had discovered something completely new to the world. His shoulders dwarfed her, his muscles held in precision suspension. Bruce looked over at Clint and wished he’d got a seat next to him. Bruce wanted very much to touch him. Maybe just the back of his hand. That would be enough.

“Kiss the inside of her knee,” Tony said. “Touch where you want, but kiss your way up steadily. Don’t rush it.”

A log in the burner collapsed, sputtering to death as Steve progressed. Tony stood up, stretching and shaking out his arms. He walked past Natasha, trailing his fingers over her knuckles where she lay over the arm of the couch. He buried his hand in Steve’s straw hair, turned towards the others as he casually pushing Steve forward into the cloth over Natasha’s cunt. 

“Breathe,” Tony instructed, eyes locked on Thor now. “Clint. You better be under Thor in ten seconds or dammit I’m gonna have to come over there and put you under him.”

“Yes, sir,” Clint twisted away and grabbed Thor’s lapels, and was immediately rewarded with Thor’s hands on his face, drawing him in for a rough kiss. “God, your-” Clint complained between their tussle, “dumbass – beard – thing – I fucking hate it-”

“Stop whining,” Thor ordered, as they both stood up at once. This was counter-productive for kissing, as Clint was a full head shorter than Thor, and for a moment Bruce saw them both hesitate. Then Thor grabbed Clint’s face and they both dropped, kneeling, onto the couch. Bruce had the strong suspicion that things were, by necessity, going to be a lot more equitable in that court than whatever Tony’s fantasy called for.

“You can take those off now, Steve,” Tony said. “And I want you to just explore her. Make a map with your tongue. Don’t go trying to climb inside her, just find the spots where she responds. She’ll tell you what she wants from there.”

“Tell him where to go, Tony,” Natasha demanded. 

“Nope,” Tony replied. “Woah, watch your limbs guys, Steve’s concentrating here.”

Thor and Clint were still quite assuredly locked together and not paying much attention to their surroundings. The musty couch’s springs creaked under their weight. Tony turned his gaze on Bruce and held out his hand. 

Bruce took it and got to his feet. He didn’t remember holding someone’s hand since he was a kid. As Tony’s skin slid against his, diagrams with bullet points flashed through his head, detailing the thick, sensitive branches of nerves that filled fingertips and palms. Tony was standing in a bare space just out of reach of Steve’s crouched form and Thor’s knees. He pulled Bruce into it, and the air here felt a lot warmer. His arm slid around Bruce’s waist and he laced their fingers together with his other hand. Supernovas birthed inside Bruce’s chest as Tony corralled him with his arm, with his eyes too, with all the thoughts and plans and intellect behind his irises.

“Am I last because I’m the ugliest?” Bruce said. He meant it as a joke, but he wasn’t sure his facial expressions were quite under the control of his conscious mind.

“Oh no,” Tony said, leading Bruce in a swinging circle, a teenage approximation of a waltz. “I’m just being selfish. I kept you for myself.”

Tony was leaning into him, chest to chest and hips to hips. He smelled clean like water, but there was an untidy catch in his breath as he rested his cheek against Bruce’s. Their palms were starting to sweat. As they danced, Bruce saw that Clint had his hands down the front of Thor’s pants and that Natasha was arching, her eyes closed. He saw Steve find a place that made a thrust shake her body. It didn’t even feel strange to be seeing this. It felt like the inevitable trajectory of their intertwining friendships.

“I’m not sure…” Tony murmured in his ear, and then turned it into a question. “What do you want, Bruce?” 

“This is enough,” Bruce replied. 

“Not fair. Tell me the answer,” Tony pouted, his lips against the lobe of Bruce’s ear.

“I’ll tell you what it feels like,” Bruce’s erection was growing against the rough slide of Tony’s thigh as they followed the improvised dance. “My heart is racing. The edges of my thoughts are falling away. My blood feels hot, impossibly hot, and everything covering my nerves – my clothes, my skin, my muscles – are so tight that they’re smothering me. I only want one thing. But I’m afraid of what happens if I do, so all of my strength goes towards holding myself back.”

“You can take whatever you want,” Tony promised. 

“No, you don’t understand,” Bruce croaked. A dark, brutal anger was welling inside of him, a childish scream of _it’s not fair!_. “This is what I’m feeling right now, but it’s also what I feel when it happens. Mr Hyde. And I can’t let him out.”

Tony was silent for once in his life. He continued to lead Bruce in a waltz, his hand strong and confident on Bruce’s hip. 

“I don’t think,” Bruce said quietly, “it’s a good idea for me to get too excited.”

“What if I told you I’m one-hundred-percent confident that it will be okay,” Tony said.

Bruce chuckled, “You’re always confident, Tony.”

“Yeah. I am,” Tony drew his head back to look Bruce in the eyes. “And maybe just a little bit curious to meet Mr Hyde.”

“That’s why I’ve got to make the decision now, before you convince me,” Bruce said quietly. “Sorry Tony. I really want to.”

“Can I at least kiss you?”

Bruce smiled and nodded. “Yeah. You can.”

True to form, Tony took advantage of what little he had. Bruce had kissed girls, well, a couple of girls. Tony was a lot more forceful. And prickly. The whole time, his hand was gripping Bruce’s arm like Bruce was leading him home. 

Bruce wanted more. His brain was fizzing with need. But he thought of the holes in his walls and the look on his father’s face when he’d described what he saw through the bedroom window. The blood left his cock. He had already put his friends into a terrible world for reasons he couldn’t begin to guess, but he was not going to be responsible for releasing the one threat he might still control. 

He pulled away, smiling to make sure Tony didn’t get the wrong message. “Another time. When I’ve sorted this out.”

“I look forward to it,” Tony beamed back.

“I’ll just, uh,” Bruce slipped out of Tony’s grasp, “sit and watch. You carry on.”

He took the bench where Tony had started. One of Natasha’s legs was over’s Steve’s shoulder, her bright, cheap-coloured sock twitching as her muscles tensed and relaxed in pulses. As Bruce leaned back against the wall, Natasha’s hips began to twist so hard Steve had to grab her in his hands. Bruce wondered if it was appropriate to clap. Clint seemed to have made some progress with Thor’s cock, and Thor was gasping with his forehead pressed against Clint’s shoulder. Within minutes Natasha gave a soft groan through her gasps and came against Steve’s tongue, and that sent Thor over the edge, gripping Clint’s arm for support as he climaxed all over Clint’s fist. 

Steve crawled up onto the couch, his hand trailing across Natasha’s ribs, rucking up her T-shirt. She petted his hair weakly, rewarding him with a smile. Tony barged into the party.

“Alright, shift around, I bags Steve,” he grabbed Clint’s shoulders. “Go bother yourself with the lady, public-school boy, I need Thor’s help with this one.”

“Gimme a minute,” Thor gasped, slumping against the back of the couch. Clint climbed over Steve’s lap to reach Natasha and she pulled him into her arms, kissing familiar territory across his face and neck. 

Tony had dragged Steve to the middle of the couch and was licking his mouth clean. Steve’s eyes went wide for a moment – it was probably, Bruce realised, only his second kiss ever – and then closed and he put his hand behind Tony’s head. Tony straddled him, looking shockingly small, and then grabbed Thor’s collar as he pulled away. Steve’s head ducked forward to try and follow him. “Take over for me,” Tony instructed Thor.

Thor approached Steve a little more unsurely, and for a moment they just nuzzled, running hands over cheeks and shoulders as if looking for an opening in a dark room. Then Tony, who was kneeling between Steve’s thighs, got the fly of his school slacks open and Steve sucked in a breath as Tony pulled him out, hard to bursting, and swallowed him slowly. 

Steve made a noise like it was his last moment on earth and grabbed Thor’s face. Tony took his time, slowing down and pressing small kisses to Steve’s cock until Steve was squirming and telling him to “hurry up – please – Tony-“

“Bruce,” said Natasha, catching his attention. She had stretched one pale arm towards him. Clint lay wrapped around her, eyes closed contentedly, but after a moment he raised his head and beckoned Bruce in. The two of them separated to make room for him in between, with only a mild whine from Clint. Natasha’s lithe arms wrapped around his neck, Bruce resting his head in the curve of her throat, as Clint tightened his grip right round Bruce’s waist. They were all hanging half off the couch, so it wasn’t particularly ergonomic, but Bruce wouldn’t have moved for anything less than 10K cash in hand. 

“This is nice,” he murmured.

“Mmm,” Clint replied, slinging one leg over his thigh. 

Tony was still drawing Steve out, but they all knew when he finally finished. Steve was noisy, even muffled by Thor’s mouth. 

For an age of serene warmth, none of them moved. At last Bruce realised his leg had gone to sleep and Tony started getting bored. With grumbles and lingering clutches they separated back into six people. 

“We should divvy up the rooms,” Steve said, but Tony cleared his throat. Steve smiled, “Or we could all take the big bedroom upstairs. To preserve heat.”

“Quite right,” Tony slapped Thor’s ass. “First one there with a mattress gets to be in the middle.”

Then it became a game to find as many bedclothes as possible. They sprinted around the house bringing furnishings for the nest and calling about the discovery of spare toilet paper and complaining that nobody had thought to buy toothbrushes at the supermarket. Most of the bunks in the house could be stripped of their thin, plastic-covered mattresses, but they only managed to scrape together the three blankets and the cushions from the couch as pillows, plus everybody’s coats. When it was all delivered to the big attic room upstairs, Bruce raced Steve to the pile. They were first in only because Natasha was busy taking her bra off and Clint and Thor were arguing about using a blanket to cover the window (“We’ll keep the heat in,” Thor insisted, and Clint countered, “It’s double-glazed, it doesn’t need fucking curtains,”).

“Thor and Steve should be on the edges,” Natasha complained, when she and Thor were the last to reach the group. “They’re a pair of furnaces.”

“Well, you should’ve been faster,” Tony chastised her. “You want me to change the rules to suit you?”

“No,” Natasha muttered mutinously. She added quietly, “If I see a spider in this place, you’re going to wake up with it in your nose.”

“Go to sleep, all of you,” Steve rumbled. “It’s been a really long day.” 

That it had, thought Bruce. Maybe the longest of his life.


	12. Bruce

Only Bruce was awake. He'd slept well - not a peep out of Mr Hyde, thank God - but he'd got into the habit of avoiding sleep when he was stressed because of Obvious Reasons. When he awoke to a grey dawn and a cacophony of birds, he figured he'd make the most of it. He went downstairs to the living room in his boxers and Thor's big fleece coat. The wooden floor was cold and tough on his feet, but he padded across it quickly and slipped into his shoes. Outside the air was so cold it stung Bruce's skin and the inside of his lungs. He regretted not putting on his jeans, but he wasn't going back for them now.

By the time he'd relieved himself in the outside toilet his body had apparently figured out how to use all that leg hair that his teens had thrust upon him; the air felt bearably brisk now. He followed the marshy stream down to the edge of the lake and crouched on the stony beach to wash his hands. The clouds were thick across the whole sky and there was no wind. The silver water spread wider than his eyes could take in at once, and the distant reflection of the trees was like a fringe of black spikes splitting lake and sky. The sight made him feel tiny and insignificant, but that was a good feeling right now. It soaked up his fears and told him they didn't matter because there were bigger things in the world than him. 

As he flicked his hands dry, he noticed that the dawn chorus had gone silent.

"Bruce."

He shot to his feet, the stones sliding under him as he lunged a couple of steps back. Mr Coulson, erstwhile math teacher at Pym High, stood at the end of the beach less than thirty feet away. He was in hiking gear, his bald head covered by a navy-blue beanie, and there was a large sports bag slung over one shoulder. Bruce glanced around, but the lakefront was quiet and still as before. There was no sign of anyone else. After everything that had happened, Bruce wouldn't have been surprised if Mr Coulson had teleported down here from orbit.

"It's alright," Mr Coulson raised his free hand, the one that wasn't clutching the strap of the bag. "I'm not the bad guy."

"How'd you get here?" Bruce demanded. Standing there with his skinny, bare legs caused a rush of embarrassment.

"I, uh," Mr Coulson pointed back into the trees, "got a local guy to boat me over from Saint Croix. He dropped me around the corner. I thought it might scare you if you saw the strange boat."

Bruce's breathing levelled out. He realised he'd raised his fists, and he tried to relax them. "You're working with those men. The ones who tried to kidnap me."

"No, I'm not," Mr Coulson paused, pressing his lips together and lifting one finger as if for silence in the classroom. "Well, yes, I am. But they shouldn't have done that. I was very angry about that."

"I thought they were going to kill me!" Bruce yelled. His heart thudded like a horse kicking at the stable door. He had to calm down. It was going to happen again. Mr Coulson was just looking at him. Bruce jabbed one accusing finger at him. "Stay there. Don't move. I'm going to wake the others."

"Are you all okay?" Mr Coulson asked as Bruce edged back to the path, trying not to turn his back to the man. His voice was dry as always, but it almost sounded like there was real concern in it. Bruce didn't know what to believe.

"Yeah," he replied. "We're okay."

"That's good," Mr Coulson smiled.

Bruce turned and ran back to the cabin as fast as he could. Mr Coulson called after him, "Please hurry."

He dashed inside and was halfway up the stairs when he realised he'd left the door open. He scrambled down again, hauled it shut and slid the bolt through. Then it was back up and tumbling into the big bedroom.

The rest of the boys still lay in a pile, though Clint had acquired Bruce's spot to take advantage of Steve's warmth. Natasha was standing in the corner mostly dressed, just tugging her jeans over her thighs. "Bruce!" she complained. "Try knocking!"

"We need to get up," Bruce panted. He fell to his knees on the edge of the mattress and shook Thor's shoulder. "Get up. Everyone, get up."

"Fuck the fucking fuck off," Tony muttered, rolling onto his stomach.

"Get up, all of you!" Bruce grabbed the blankets and ripped them away. Clint mewled and curled up around Steve's shoulder. Steve didn’t even flinch. "Mr Coulson is outside!"

Natasha jerked upright. Tony raised his head, blinked and then tensed and rocketed to his feet. "Mr Coulson? What? How many men are with him? Are there guns?"

"It’s just him," Bruce said. “I think he’s unarmed.”

"The hell he is," Tony grunted, "Come on. And someone wake Steve up."

He, Nat and Bruce stumbled down into the main room. Nat went to the window and declared, "He's right in front of the house."

"What do we do?" Bruce hissed at Tony, who simply made a befuddled face and shrugged.

"He's approaching the front," Natasha narrated, her tone strangely formal. "He's at the door."

There was a loud knock. Tony ran both his hands through his hair. Behind them, the others ambled down in various states of dishevelled undress. Steve was still yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"There's definitely no sign of anyone else?" Tony asked. Natasha nodded. "Then let him in."

Thor stepped to the front as Natasha shot the bolt, grasped the handle and swung the door open. Mr Coulson stood there, smiling pleasantly. "Hi," he raised his hand. "How are you all doing?"

Nobody answered him. He took a cautious step into the room, and then another. In a moment Natasha slammed the door behind him, bolted it and before any of them could blink, Mr Coulson was face-first against the wood with his arms twisted behind his back. The sports bag tumbled to the floor. "What are you doing here?" she barked in his ear. "Huh? Why have you been watching us?"

"Natasha, I don't know that we have time for a full conference- ah- ah-!" he winced as she bent his arm back further. "Pepper sent me. Pepper Potts."

Natasha glanced at Tony with a frown.

"Check your emails," Mr Coulson gasped.

There was a brief, awkward couple of minutes while Tony booted up the laptop and found a signal. He read the response from Miss Potts aloud, " _My God, Tony, you are as bad as ever. Stay where you are, I am sending Phil to get you. Keep Bruce calm and look after the others. Pepper_ ," he raised one eyebrow at Clint. "Is he 'Phil'?"

"My driver's license is in my wallet, in the bag," Mr Coulson supplied. Clint crouched to unzip the sports bag and rummage through. His hand emerged holding a black, leather wallet, which he tossed to Steve while he pulled something else out of the bag; a heavy plastic case that Bruce might have expected to contain a small saxophone. He dumped it on the floor and unclipped it.

"That's yours," Mr Coulson said over his shoulder. "In case we need it."

Clint lifted out a metal frame. Bruce didn't even recognise it as a bow until Clint made a flick with his wrist and it unfolded to its full span. Clint wrinkled his nose. "I told you, I don't touch weapons," and shoved the whole contraption back into the sports bag without packing it into its case. He pulled out a handgun inside a holster. “So much for unarmed, Bruce.”

“That one’s mine, please pass it over,” Mr Coulson asked.

Clint raised his eyebrows and handed the holster to Tony, who took off his coat to strapped it around his chest.

"Phillip Coulson," Steve read one of the cards he’d found in the wallet. He passed it to Bruce to inspect. "Seems legit."

"Let him breathe, Nat," Tony said reluctantly, and Natasha released Mr Coulson's arm. He rolled his shoulders with a grimace.

"You learn that at home, Natasha?" he asked.

"Cut the shit," Natasha snapped. "Why'd your friends throw Bruce in the back of a van?"

"I will tell you everything," Mr Coulson promised, "but we are on an extremely tight schedule. You all need to get dressed and be outside in one minute so I can get you back to Saint Croix. Pepper's people have arranged for us to board a freight train that's going through there in forty-five minutes. Shield is watching the roads, but they lack imagination. The train bypasses Bangor and ends up in Jackman, where a Stark Industries jet will be waiting for us. We need to move."

Bruce looked at Tony. Tony nodded. “Clothes, now. Natasha, keep an eye on our guest until we’re back.”

They were downstairs again in only a few minutes. Mr Coulson sat on one end of a bench, tapping his fingers on his knee. Natasha sat at the other end with her arms crossed, glaring hatefully at him.

“Ready?” Mr Coulson jumped to his feet just as if this was a parent-approved school trip to the museum. “We’ll be faster if we take your boat.”

“Um, I’m not one-hundred-percent sure we have enough fuel,” Thor admitted.

Mr Coulson looked around at them. “Are you kids serious?” he said numbly. “Okay. Um. My local guy should still be in the next bay, I think he was setting up for a fishing trip. You’re all lucky I brought extra bribes.”

They headed outside. Thor locked the door of the cabin behind them.

“So, wait, just clear this up with me,” Tony hurried ahead to walk in step with Mr Coulson. “You were in charge of the guys who kidnapped Bruce. Right?”

“I was in charge of the mission they were posted to, yes.”

“But now you’re working against them.”

“That’s correct.”

“Are you allowed to do that?”

Mr Coulson glanced at him. “I’m six months from retirement anyway. I’m sure I’ll cope with, uh, the loss of my thirty-five year career and considerable pension.”

“Why?” Natasha called from a few steps behind. “Why would you do that for us?”

Mr Coulson looked over his shoulder as they reached the beach and turned to follow the shore. “That’s a complicated question, Natasha,” he said. “How much do you all remember? Please tell me the truth.”

“Remember about what?” Bruce asked.

That got another stare. Mr Coulson licked his lips. “What, none of you?”

“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Steve said testily. The trees were getting thick now and they had to pick their way carefully through the brambles and over the uneven ground. “Is this to do with our adoptions? Tony found our birth certificates that say Maria Hill was our mother.”

“Sextuplets seemed unlikely,” Bruce added, and thinking of last night, “Also super awkward.”

“Are we a secret cloning project?” Tony guessed. “We are, right? For the military?”

Mr Coulson held back a low branch for Tony to pass and gave it up to Natasha when she refused to let him walk behind her. “This is gonna take a lot of talking,” he said. “It will be easier when we’re with Pepper. She’ll have files we can show you, so you can see who you used to be. There are questions we won't be able to answer. You’re not clones. You were – you are – you had other lives before these ones, and parts of those lives seem to be bleeding through. Maybe think of it like reincarnation for now.”

“Awesome,” said Thor.

“Fucking awesome,” agreed Clint.

“Um, I think we are all kind of missing the elephant in the room,” Tony demanded, “Why did men in black want to kidnap Bruce?”

Bruce sped up a little to make sure he didn’t miss a word, but didn’t put in anything of his own. It was easier to let Tony rip the bandaid off.

“Because you used to be dangerous people,” Mr Coulson shrugged. “Really dangerous, in some cases.”

“Dangerous people,” Tony echoed. “The Avengers?”

Mr Coulson let out a soft laugh, glancing Tony up and down. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.” 

“I figured that out on my own. It matched a lot of circumstantial evidence,” Tony said haughtily, tracing a vague circle in the air. “How does Bruce fit into the Avengers?”

“Hopefully Bruce will never have to fit in,” Mr Coulson ducked his head under a low branch. “We sent Dr Walters to help him keep that part of himself under control. Dr Walters is a civilian, he just happened to be the best shrink we could think of. His mother, Jennifer Walters, had a similar problem. When Bruce cancelled his sessions somebody higher up got scared and made a really stupid call,” he smiled back at the group. “I’m quite proud of how you all handled it.”

“You knew us in our other lives, didn’t you?” Tony narrowed his eyes. “What were you?” he looked Mr Coulson up and down. “Our accountant?”

“I like to think I was your friend,” Mr Coulson said. “But maybe I’m being generous. A colleague, at least.”

Natasha spoke up suddenly. Her voice was hoarse. “You were in love with one of us.”

Mr Coulson’s head shot around. Natasha frowned, “Just a guess.”

“That’s in the past,” Mr Coulson said, avoiding her eye. “I’ve long accepted that they’re gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha told him. “I’m sorry we left you behind.”

“It wasn’t your choice,” he replied quietly.

The trees ahead cleared as they emerged into another bay, wider than the one where the cabin sat but with the trees pushed much closer to the waterline. In lieu of a beach there was only a thin, muddy strip at the bottom of a short bank. At the far end of the bay sat a flat, aluminium dinghy with a single, grey-haired occupant.

Tony bounded down the bank onto the shore and started to stomp towards the boat, the mud sucking his shoes in deep. Mr Coulson threw out his arm before Natasha could follow him. He dropped the sports bag at the top of the bank and held out his hand, beckoning. “Tony, come back here. Kid, come on.”

“What?” Tony turned around. He looked out at the water and into the trees, then back to Mr Coulson. “What’s wrong?”

And that was when the army arrived. 

At least, it looked like an army to Bruce. They were in a uniform, not one he’d ever seen on the television, and they were shouting to each other the way he assumed an army did. They came out of the trees. The grey-haired man in the distant boat fell over. Bruce didn’t know if he was dead or sedated, but he didn’t care, all he knew was that Tony was in the thick of it.

Before any of them could move, Mr Coulson had leapt down the bank and sprinted through the mud to Tony’s side. He made a grab for the handgun under Tony’s jacket and then spun in time to pistol-whip the nearest soldier down into the muck. That slowed the next three down for caution, and they raised their rifles to shoulder height and screamed at Mr Coulson to stand down. Mr Coulson kept his gun trained on the nearest one.

“Stop! _Stop!_ ” Tony bellowed, raising his arms. A ripple ran through the soldiers – Bruce distantly heard the crackle of radios – and the army paused. At the far end of the bay, Bruce saw a man without a rifle standing above the bank with soldiers marching around him. Authority oozed from him and polluted the air.

Tony stood on tiptoes and shouted in a voice that spread across the water. “Are you people insane? We are not a threat! We are harming no one!”

The man in charge spoke into a radio in his palm. The soldiers held their ground. Mr Coulson was ankle-deep in the mud, but hadn’t budged an inch. Tony spread his arms wide.

“We are not,” Tony yelled, “who you think we are. So whatever your agenda, whatever you think you’re fighting, you’ve wasted your time. You know what I want? I want to go home and have a drink. I want to sit around watching the stock market. So help me God, I want to drive out of town with my friends for a weekend in the wilderness without the God-damned secret service ambushing us in the middle of this beautiful,” he turned to survey the lake, “ _beautiful_ landscape.”

He finished with a flourish of his wrists, “Is that too much to ask?” and when there was only the silence of dozens of men shifting in place and squelch of the earth beneath them, he stretched his hands up with four fingers proclaiming peace twice to the sky. “I didn’t think so. Peace out.”

He turned to leave like this was a successful catch-up all round.

There was the crackle of a radio and the pop of a weapon and Tony went down shuddering. He landed with his head and shoulders in the lake, face down. Mr Coulson got one shot in before he was tackled from the side by two goons built like tanks. Then the soldiers were coming for them.

Oh, God, Bruce heard himself yell. And just as they reached the bank, there was a _thwap, thwap_ and the nearest man fell to his knees. There were things sticking out of his thigh that Bruce couldn’t identify on the spot. _Thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap_ , like a metronome, and the next two fell sideways, one screaming and grasping at his legs. Bruce gaped and looked to his left.

Clint was standing over Mr Coulson’s sports bag with the bow in his hand and a matching quiver on his back. He was moving like a machine, one arrow after another, nocking each one without glancing away from his targets and letting loose with swift, smooth drags on the bowstring. His face was pale and his mouth was set in a hard line. He didn’t stop. When two of the injured soldiers raised their weapons and yelled at him to drop the bow, Clint put an arrow down the barrel of the first’s gun and another between the second man’s middle two fingers, straight down between the bones, splitting his gloved hand in two with the point lodging itself in the bones of his wrist. The man made a noise like a smacked dog and fell back.

Steve’s voice cut through Bruce’s shock. “Nat, get Bruce back to the boat! Get it running!” he tossed her the keys from one of his pockets. “Clint, cover us, Thor come on –”

The two of them bolted down the bank, leapt around the groaning soldiers and splashed through the edge of the water. The men had stopped their frontal assault, but Nat shouted a warning to Clint as another group that had circled round the side broke out of the cover of the trees. Clint turned and took the first two down with arrows in their knees and thighs, while Nat broke a dried branch across the face of the third. The quiver on Clint’s back was getting low. Bruce hunched down, his blood feeling thick as treacle in his veins. His instincts told him to run, run, go as fast as he could, but he knew he couldn’t leave Clint and Nat. 

There were four men who had disarmed Mr Coulson and were pulling him away, and as Thor and Steve reached Tony, two of them turned back to waylay them, their weapons both going off as they aimed for Thor. It wasn’t bullets that came out, Bruce realised, but some kind of taser dart. Thor fell to one knee, his neck arched back and his limbs shaking. And then, his tendons straining against his skin, he slowly reached forward and ripped both the darts out of his chest.

Steve had reached Tony at last, but just as he bent down another clutch of soldiers surged along the beach, safe from arrows while Clint was distracted by the side attack. Two grabbed Steve’s arms, and Steve roared and sent one of them flying six feet through the air and crashing against the bank. The other hung on until four more had reached the scene, arms locking around Steve’s limbs, waist, neck – he was half a head taller than the tallest of the soldiers, but they swarmed like ants and began to drag him away, and Thor bellowed Steve’s name and threw himself into the fight, but there were eight more coming for him – and Tony –

Tony was still in the water – he would drown – didn’t they understand – Tony would die – Tony would – didn’t they – Tony –

Bruce saw green.


	13. Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short update for now, but hopefully I will post something again later tonight (NZST). I've also been asked about the title - it's not a misspelling of hallelujah, haha, though I should have figured out people would think that and explained earlier. It's in reference to a German fairytale which in English means ["All-kinds-of-fur"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allerleirauh), about a princess who flees her home because she looks so much like her mother that the king, her father, wants to marry her. I chose the title mainly because of that theme of not wanting to become your predecessor, and because I liked using a fairytale in a story about kids. Additionally, it was kind of an inside joke for myself: in the well-known Grimm Brothers version of the story, she gets married to a prince in a neighbouring kingdom and it all ends happily, but as a kid I read an older version of the story where she returns to the King's ball, is discovered and marries her own father. I like the creepy horror of old fairytales and that one always scared me because the protagonist seems to lose in the story and the antagonist (the king) is never punished because he has the authority. Anyway, that's the stupid explanation for the title, if you think it's rubbish I'd love to know for next time I need to pick a title. For now, on with the fic!

Natasha felt out of shape. Her body could barely take down a man twice her weight, and a front tuck flip was totally out. She was weak. She didn’t remember exactly how strong she was supposed to be, she just knew that she was not up to standard. None of them were. Weakened by time and easy lives. 

Behind her, Bruce roared and the approaching soldiers stopped and backed up, their mouths hanging open. That was lucky, Natasha thought, because Clint was down to his last two arrows and her stick was only a couple of feet long now. She was distantly aware that there had been something odd about Bruce’s voice. The boggy ground shuddered once, twice. Natasha turned to see how Thor and Steve were doing. 

Oh. 

Natasha took a stumbling step backwards. “Clint,” she said, reaching for his shoulder. “Clint.”

He glanced at her, and then back and up. The bow dropped and his hand found hers and gripped so tight it hurt. “Bruce-” he said unsurely. 

The creature straightened its spine, the clicks of its vertebrae echoing across the battleground. For a moment it turned in place, surveying the soldiers a few feet from Clint and Natasha, and then it shook itself as if to shed the last of its humanity and barrelled down the bank towards Thor, Steve and Tony. One injured soldier couldn’t roll away in time and Natasha saw him go under. When the creature’s foot lifted there was only a red and muddied pancake of skull and bone. The creature roared again as it landed, sinking deep into the mud. The sound sent ripples across the lake and rustled the leaves of the trees. 

_”HULK – REMEMBERS – EVERYTHING!”_

The soldiers fell back despite the crackle of their radios and the rage of their commander at the other end of the bay. Thor and Steve stood alone in front of the monster, splattered in mud and staring with their mouths open. It bent over Tony. One huge, green hand closed around the unconscious boy’s torso and lifted him as easily as picking up a leaf from the water. 

“Live rounds!” came a cry from somewhere far away. “Switch to live rounds! Fire!”

The barrage a few seconds was as heavy as a hailstorm. They were all aimed at the creature, but Natasha grabbed Clint and threw them both flat to the ground before they could be caught in the crossfire. The creature roared, cradling Tony against its side to shield him. One of the injured soldiers tried wriggle away through the churned mud, but it grabbed him and hurled him into his fellows. The gunfire died away, but there was no sign of blood on its skin.

_”LEAVE US ALONE!”_

Holding Tony like a limp doll, the creature turned and stomped back to the bank. There it knelt against the crumbling slope, looking at Natasha with its toxic green eyes. There was familiarity in its expression, and she could see confusion beneath its rage. She got to her knees slowly, glancing back at where the nearest soldiers were regrouping further along the shore, though half of them seemed to be fleeing outright. She grabbed the back of Clint’s jacket and hauled him up. “Come on.”

“What the fuck are we doing?”

Natasha pointed at the creature. “We’re catching our ride out of here.”

Clint hesitated for about half a second, and then his expression solidified. He backed up and took a running jump off the bank, using his momentum to clamber up the creature’s chest. It shuddered and twitched, almost sending him flying off, but he grabbed handfuls of hair and swung a leg either side of its neck. Natasha followed, darting up one huge arm to straddle the creature’s shoulder. Clint held out his hand to Thor, who had slugged through the mud to reach them and climbed up the creature’s back with some lifting from its free arm.

“You’re bleeding, bro,” Clint commented as Thor perched himself on the opposite shoulder to Natasha. 

“Only a scratch,” Thor assured him as the creature swung around to sweep Steve up onto its forearm. Tony lay motionless in one of its huge palms, and Steve grabbed his pale hand as he hunched down against the creature’s chest. The rest of them tried to find a handhold on the leathery skin, and clung to each other’s trailing limbs if they couldn’t find it.

“HOLD ON,” came the rumble from the huge mouth.

It was like being strapped to the nose of a steam train. Only no, it was like clinging by your fingernails to the nose of steam train. And the train wasn’t running on tracks, because it had crashed off the tracks and was smashing through the forest at forty miles an hour. They were constantly in danger of being swiped off the creature’s shoulders by the dense trees, but somehow the huge fist always rose in time and cleaved the trunks of ancient pines, turning thick branches into matchsticks. Natasha was hanging onto clumps of the black hair, each strand as thick as twine and cutting into her palms like steel wire. Her hands began to cramp until she thought her fingers would fall off. It was a miserable way to travel, but they were leaving the army behind. They had to be going somewhere better. 

They were heading vaguely uphill, but she strongly suspected that not even the north face of the Eiger would hold this thing back. It was going to run until it got tired or bored, and both of those could be a long time coming. Steve must have been thinking the same thing, because from below his voice rose above the thud of huge feet and the crunch of dismembered trees. “Bruce!” he yelled. “Bruce, you have to stop! We have to see to Tony!”

The creature gave an impatient bellow, but its pace began to ease off. They emerged into a grassy plateau about fifty feet above the lake, with a view of the whole area, and finally the creature halted. For a moment it stood, its breath heaving like a living mountain, its skin smelling strangely of chemicals with a coppery tang. It stomped in a circle for a moment, kicking out shrubs and saplings and wearing a flat nest into the thigh-high grass. Then it crouched down and laid Tony’s body onto the crushed undergrowth. 

Steve shuffled down its arm to land nearby, and Natasha helped Clint use her as an abseiling post down the creature’s back. He held out his arms and caught her as she slid after him. Thor just jumped straight down, landing on both feet with a grunt. They hurried around to cluster over Tony. Steve had his ear down by their friend’s mouth, trying to find a pulse in his neck at the same time.

“The dart, get rid of the fucking dart,” Clint pointed at the black taser embedded in Tony’s chest. 

“He’s breathing,” Steve gasped in a voice of pure relief. He pulled the dart from Tony’s skin and tossed it away. “He’s breathing. Tony, come on, hey,” he slapped Tony’s face lightly, and then looked over his shoulder, “Nat, can you check Thor? He jumped in front of me when they opened fire, I think he got shot.”

_”What?”_ Natasha heard her own voice come out in an embarrassing shriek. She spun to face Thor. “Sit down, right now! Where were you shot?”

“I’m fine, honestly,” with some pushing and threatening, Thor sat and leaned back against the creature’s leg. It huffed grouchily while Natasha and Clint inspected the splatters of blood on Thor’s chest. The wounds almost hidden beneath the mud. 

Behind them, Steve made a triumphant noise, and started babbling, “Tony, oh, man, can you see me? Are you okay? Follow my finger, Tony.”

Natasha wanted to be there, but she had just found the tiny puncture where Thor was bleeding. “Fuck,” she muttered. “I think this is a bullet hole.”

It was right between Thor’s ribs. He must have been running on adrenaline because he barely even flinched as she pressed the heel of her hand over it to stem the bleeding. She tried to dredge up all her first aid knowledge. There would be blood pooling in Thor’s lung, and as the air escaped and began to fill his chest cavity, the lung would collapse and breathing would become difficult and then impossible. Not to mention that any mud or clothing that had been dragged inside the wound by the path of the bullet would be at extreme risk of infection. Without antibiotics that would mean sepsis, gangrene, death… 

“It barely even hurts,” Thor insisted. “Stop making a fuss.”

“There’s two more here,” Clint said, a note of wonder in his voice. “Hang on, Nat, look at this-“

He drew one of his last two arrows out of the quiver. The bow was gone. Before she could stop him, Clint dug the tip of the arrow into the wound.

“Clint! Jesus, stop!”

“Look,” Clint insisted, his tongue between his teeth as he pried something out and flicked it into his palm. He held it out to her. It was a tiny hunk of metal, flattened into a ragged mushroom at one end. “It was just under the surface. Point blank range, and it’s squashed like it hit fucking Kevlar,” went back to the second hole and levered out a near-identical ballistic. “He’s fucking bulletproof.”

Natasha looked up at Thor, who shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’ve never been shot before.”

“Mr Coulson wasn’t kidding,” Natasha whispered. “We’re dangerous. All of us,” she stood up slowly, locking eyes with the creature that had been Bruce. “You’re Hulk, right?”

“TONY SAFE?” Hulk growled. 

Natasha looked over to where Steve was helping Tony vomit lake water into the bushes. She turned back to Hulk. “He’s safe. You saved him.”

Hulk gave a contented rumble and relaxed back on his haunches, knocking Thor over without even noticing. 

“Hulk,” Natasha said slowly. “Back at the lake, you said you remembered. What did you mean?”

Despite everything, the creature’s face was still human. An expression of frustration flickered across it, and then resolution. “EVERYTHING. HULK KNOWS.”

“Know what?” Clint called, standing up beside Natasha. “Tell us, man.”

Hulk extended one arm-sized finger towards Natasha, “SHE WAS WIDOW. BLACK WIDOW. KILLED FOR MONEY. AGENT OF SHIELD,” he turned the finger towards Clint, “YOU TOO. KILLING AS JOB. HIM-“ here the finger turned to Steve, “SOLDIER FROM THE OLD DAYS. FACE OF OLD WAR. HIM,” and now to Tony, propped up against Steve’s chest, “WEAPON-BUILDER. MONEY-MAKER. HIM,” at last came Thor’s turn, “PRINCE OF ASGARD. WAR-MONGERER. BORN INTO POWER.”

Hulk’s huge voice fell silent, his hands lowering to rest on his knees. Natasha felt her throat close up. There was a warmth on her cheeks that she realised was tears. She rubbed them away quickly with her sleeve. “But we’re not anymore,” she demanded. “We’re not, Hulk. Are we?”

“BRUCE THINKS NO. HULK THINKS,” a moment of silence. “HULK DOESN’T KNOW.”

“Hulk,” Natasha took a step forward. “Can Bruce come back? Can we talk to him?”

“NO!” Hulk bellowed back, and Natasha felt the wind of it across her face and the sound resonate in her bones. “HULK PROTECT BRUCE. HULK PROTECT _YOU!”_

“Tony’s not looking good, Nat,” Steve called. “I think we need to get him to a hospital. Probably Thor too.”

“M’fine,” came Tony’s croak. “M’peachy.”

“Nat,” Steve spoke overtop of them. “We have to give ourselves up.”

“No fucking way!” Clint spun, pointing back towards the lake. “Are you kidding me? Those sons of bitches just tried to fill us with lead!”

“Then where are we supposed to go, Clint?” Natasha asked, grabbing his arm. He jerked out of her grasp, and that stung a bit. She followed him and put her hand on his cheek. He leaned into it but avoided her eye. He was her first friend and she knew she couldn’t follow her own orders unless he was by her side. She said quietly, “Hey, fuckface, look at me. Where do we go? Stark Industries? You think Bruce can carry us all the way to New York without someone noticing?”

Clint put his hand over hers. “I shot people, Nat. Someone’s gonna be mad about that.”

She gave him the best smile she could manage. “Afraid. They’re gonna be afraid.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he laughed, but it wasn’t his usual guffaw. There was bitterness and terror just under the surface.

“Makes me feel better,” Natasha pulled him into a hug. “Makes me proud.”

“Guys,” Steve interrupted, “You hear that?”

Natasha listened. In the distance, there was the beat of helicopter blades. Hulk raised his head, sniffing the air.

“HULK WILL NOT SURRENDER,” he intoned. “HULK WILL GO NORTH. HULK WILL KEEP BRUCE SAFE.”

“We can’t split up!” Thor cried, struggling to his feet. “Not now!”

“No, Mr Hyde here is right,” Tony gave a hacking cough and then continued, leaning on Steve to stand upright. “They sedated Bruce the second they got their hands on him. They went from stun guns to bullets as soon as Hulk arrived. Of all of us, he’s in the most danger from them. If Hulk can look after himself, I think he should go where he wants. Maybe if they catch the rest of us, they won’t put as much effort into chasing him.”

Hulk stood up, the plateau shaking with his footfalls. “PROTECT EACH OTHER,” he ordered, and Tony gave a shaky laugh and saluted him. “GOODBYE.”

He didn’t run this time, but ambled into the trees, shouldering them easily out of the way when they blocked his path. The helicopters had appeared out of a valley on the far side of the lake, though they were still only tiny specks. Steve transferred Tony’s weight to Clint and quickly pulled off his jacket and his white school shirt. Natasha saw what he was doing and jogged over to the tree line, kicking the shrubbery aside until she found a dead branch of suitable length. She snapped the side twigs off it and brought it back to the group, where Steve tied his shirt onto it and held it aloft, waving the white flag back and forth as the helicopters approached.

“Hey, did you hear?” Thor said, only a hint of trepidation in his voice, “I’m a prince. How cool is that?”

“So cool,” said Clint.

“Super cool,” Natasha agreed. 

The grass rippled away from the helicopters as they circled the plateau, and a crackling megaphone ordered them to get down on their knees and put their hands behind their heads.


	14. Clint

So far, the worst thing about being in prison was the boredom. It was quite a comfy prison in fact, though Clint admittedly didn’t have much to compare it to. There was a nice bed with lots of blankets, a wall between the door and the toilet, and a sink and shower with soap and a toothbrush in little paper packets like a fancy hotel.

He’d spent the first couple of hours trying to pick the lock with a splintered bit of toothbrush and one of the plastic rings from the shower curtain, and then given it up and slept. He'd woken back up to the prison’s menthol-coloured walls and the distant hum of the carrier’s engines. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. He was hungry, but a guard in the same uniform as the soldiers brought him a plate of very decent cafeteria food. Clint didn’t thank him, and the guard didn’t talk. There was a monogram on the uniform: S.H.I.E.L.D.

Being separated from Google was extremely frustrating.

That had been about three days ago. He hadn’t seen anyone familiar since they’d all been separated on the deck of the huge, flying, jaw-dropping monstrosity of an aircraft carrier. He hadn’t spoken to a soul. During a couple of the drawn out days he’d raged and shouted at the little black bubble in the corner that contained the security camera. “I’m an American citizen!” he’d screamed. “Pepper Potts is looking for us, she’s going to sue the shit out of you until she gets us back!” Eventually he’d just sworn profusely at them and their mothers.

He’d exercised for a while, sit ups and push ups, like all the action stars did in the films when they were in dank terrorist basements. It quickly got as boring as sitting still. He’d tried to find the hinges of the door, but they were impossible to reach. There was no handle on the inside.

He sat on the bed now with his knees up to his chin, staring at the camera. He thought about making himself vomit so he could get out of the room, or pretending to hang himself with his bedsheets and then – bam! – he’d escape when they came to cut him down. Both plans sounded like too much effort right now. Also, he wasn’t sure the shower rail would hold his weight.

“Let me out,” he told the security camera, trying to light it on fire with his mind. “Let me out. I want to go home. My parents will be worried,” he pressed his face into his forearm. “I want to go home.”

He wondered if Mrs Tian would fail him in biology because of this absence. He wondered if Bruce was alright, if Hulk had found enough to eat in the forest on his way north. He wondered if Natasha had broken any more noses. He hoped Tony and Thor had got proper medical treatment. He hoped Jan Graystone had told his dads that he was safe in Canada. He didn’t want his dads to know where he really was.

They were pretty much the same thoughts that had being going around and around in his head for three days.

There were footsteps in the corridor outside, but he was used to it. When the footsteps stopped, he raised his head. It wasn’t time for a meal, he was pretty sure. There were voices outside, and then the click of the locks drawing back. The door opened and a man with broad shoulders and a chiselled jaw stood there, flanked by two soldiers with tasers on their belts. Even though he’d only seen him at a distance, Clint’s mind recoiled. This was the man who’d commanded the army. Ambushed them at the lake. Told the soldiers to fire on Bruce.

“Mr Taylor,” the commander said. “How are you feeling?”

“You can call me Clint. We’re all friends here,” Clint shot back.

“Would you like a walk, Mr Taylor?”

“Sure,” Clint turned his face away. “Just leave the door open.”

The commander strode inside and leaned down, propping his hands on his knees, so he was at Clint’s eye level. “I’m trying to do you a favour, kid,” he growled. “A chance to save your friend Natasha.”

Clint’s gaze flicked around and he found himself looking into the man’s blue eyes. In that moment he knew absolutely that this man didn’t see him as a dysfunctional child or even as an enemy deserving of respect or pity. This man saw him as paperwork that needed to be filed or shredded.

“If you hurt her, you’re an even sicker fuck than I knew already,” Clint snarled. “She’s just a kid. We’re just kids.”

“She’s a pain in my backside, is what she is,” the commander lowered his voice so that even the soldiers a few feet away couldn’t hear. “You wanna know how many fucks I give whether you and that red-headed brat live or die, you little shit stain? Exactly zero. I inherited you and your snot-nosed schoolfriends from Nick Fury and I’ve been trying to shake you all out of my hair ever since. All your crying and your big-boy cusses ain’t gonna change that. You think you’re an American Citizen? You’re not. You’re legally a ward of S.H.I.E.L.D., and you have been from the second you left this helicarrier sixteen and a half years ago. You think that bitch Potts is going to come for you? There’s not a fucking penny of her money that can bring any jurisdiction on earth against us. You think your daddies are going to go crying to the news cameras? We can have gag orders on your story faster than they can whip out their dicks and they’ll be jailed if they so much as look at a journalist. So I’m your only friend in the world, Mr Taylor, and if you don’t start kissing my balls the second I say pucker up, you’re going to find yourself in a much less comfortable room than this for a very, very long time.”

Clint didn’t answer. He felt nauseous and cold. He also wanted to cry, just a little bit, and all his strength was focused on not letting his eyes so much as shine. The commander straightened up and pointed at the door. “Get up and start walking.”

The soldiers were behind him and the commander in front as they left the brig. The commander had started talking again, in a professional drone like he was debriefing his lieutenants. “Your friend Natasha choked out a guard and broke out of her cell thirty-six hours ago. She’s been loose on the helicarrier since then, but she’s moved on every time she’s been spotted. I’m going to give you one minute on the intercom to convince her to turn herself in to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. employee. After that, we will be evacuating each suspected sector one at a time and flooding them with nerve gas until we rabbit her out or find her corpse when the smoke clears. You understand?”

“I want to see the others,” Clint said.

“You don’t get freebies.”

“Nat broke out because she wants to know they’re okay,” Clint insisted. He had to jog every few steps to keep up with the commander. They had reached more populated areas now, and he tried not to stare at the men and women marching past, some carrying weapons unlike any he’d ever seen. “If I tell her I’ve seen them, she’ll be more willing to cooperate.”

The commander didn’t answer for a moment, then turned and nodded to the guards. “Do the rounds with him. Be on the bridge in fifteen minutes.”

He was led through a warren of hallways and into what the open doors suggested was the sleeping quarters of general crew. At the end of one long corridor, the soldiers unlocked the final door and gestured for him to enter.

“Clint!”

The bedroom inside was a premium private room, with an en suite and a desk as well as a carpeted floor. Steve had been doing pull-ups in the doorway to the bathroom, but he dropped down as the front portal opened. Clint dashed across to him and Steve dragged him to his chest.

“Man, your digs are fucking sweet,” Clint said, slightly muffled. Steve was kind of crushing him.

“Are you okay?” Steve let him breath at last and held him at arms’ length. “What have they done to you?”

“Nothing, I’ve just been sitting in a cell,” Clint squeezed his arms. “Have you seen anyone else?”

“Not the others. My mom came to see me.”

“Say what?”

“She works here,” Steve said in a strained voice. He swallowed. “She’s second in command, Clint. Tony was right. She knew everything – she’s been in on it from the beginning.”

“Fuck,” Clint breathed. “I’m sorry, man.”

Steve looked down at his feet and then regained his composure. “She said they had agreed to release me under her supervision, if I didn’t go anywhere except school and home and didn’t tell anyone what happened. I said I’d go and tell all your parents and write to congress and the newspapers the second I got back to Bangor. We got into a row and she left. She’s come to see me every day, but I told her I wasn’t going home without you all.”

“Take the deal, man,” Clint hissed. “Leave us, you’re not helping by staying here.”

“No way,” Steve growled, lines appearing between his eyes. “No way.”

“We need to move on, Mr Taylor,” one of the soldiers barked from the doorway. Clint pulled away from Steve’s grasping hands.

“Get out, Steve, do whatever they ask. Better one of us if free,” he insisted. He wished he could warn Steve about everything the commander had said, but it clogged in his throat and the guards were looking impatient.

Thor and Tony were both in the medical bay handcuffed to beds in different rooms. Clint was told he was only allowed to rap on the window of their rooms. Thor looked up at the sound and Clint yelled, “Are you okay?”

“Clint!” Thor strained at the handcuffs for a second – Clint could see his wrists were red and raw from it, but the bands were heavy-duty, cloth-padded things more like medieval manacles than the ones cops carried.

Clint called, “I’m fine, what about you? I’ve only got a minute, bro!”

Thor lifted up the top of his hospital pyjamas to show three small, white bandages and then flashed both his thumbs up with a cheerful smile. Clint pressed his palm to the glass. “Keep it up, you big lug!”

In the next room, Tony lay prone on his bed, pale and full of tubes. With some effort he lifted his head to grin at him. His voice was too small for Clint to hear what he was saying, but he didn’t seem urgent so Clint assumed it was a rude joke of some kind. A doctor on duty had just arrived to see what the commotion was, and after a couple of words with the guards she explained that Tony had developed a chest infection from his near-drowning, but it was under control. Clint was pretty sure there was a note of fondness in her voice. Tony’s charms must have already won her over.

“That’s it,” one of the guards ordered. “Get walking.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Clint grumbled.

On the bridge, he was pushed down into a chair with what looked like a retro bus-driver’s intercom connected to a recently updated computer system. A few terminals over, a cluster of three men glared at Clint for no reason that he could discern. The commander loomed over him and pointed out the button on top of the handset.

“You can tell her about your friends’ safety, and you can tell her about your own situation, but nothing else. Understand? If you don’t fuck me off I’ll make it worth your while.”

Clint nodded. The commander rested his hand on the back of his neck, heavy and hot. “Say it.”

“I understand.”

“Good,” the commander leaned over and swiped the card at his belt, then typed in a PIN to confirm his identity. “Press the button and you can speak. One minute.”

Clint cleared his throat. He always hated leaving messages on voicemail. It was like talking to yourself. He thumbed the button and spoke, “Natasha?”

His voice echoed around the bridge and down the halls. Some of the men and women working around him looked up, but most of them kept their eyes on their screens, apparently notified in advance. Aware of his time limit, Clint said the first things that came to mind, “Nat, it’s Clint. I hope you can hear this, wherever you are. I heard you got loose,” he gave a bark of laughter, and the commander made an impatient circle with his hand. “Anyway, I’ve seen the others. They’re all okay. Tony’s not in great shape but they’re taking good care of him. I don’t think we’re in danger here, Nat, I think they’re not going to hurt us.”

He licked his lower lip, and then burst out as fast as possible, “They’re gonna gas your hiding place so run and save yourself, Nat, leave us and get out-“

The back of a heavy hand struck him across the face and one of the soldiers had grabbed him under the arms and wrenched him backwards out of the chair. Clint cackled as the commander lunged down to switch off the intercom. Curious faces turned around and a couple of people stood up from their terminals to see what was going on. As he was dragged away, Clint yelled, “How’s that for puckering up?”

Tendons bulged in the commander’s neck and his features were crumpled up. He stretched out a hand and beckoned to the three men who had been glaring at Clint earlier. They came forward eagerly.

“Agent Dane, please escort this boy back to his quarters,” the commander said, without looking at Clint. “And Dane?”

“Yes sir?” the leader of the glaring trio said. The other two had come in to grab Clint’s arms and push him at a stumble towards the exit.

“Make sure you don’t mark his face.”

\---

“Get moving,” Agent Dane’s voice rippled low behind him as he was pushed through the door. “You know who I am?”

Clint didn’t answer. He didn’t have a clue. A hand clapped his shoulder, wrapped so thickly in bandages that it couldn’t bend at the knuckles or wrist. Clint thought of an arrow splitting a man’s hand right between its two middle fingers before it could pull a trigger. Oh.

“I have three men dead and nine looking at months of physical therapy because you decided to play this game,” the man ground out between his teeth.

“Hey,” Clint replied. “You shot first.”

It didn't hurt as bad as he thought. It was the apprehension before each punch that really hurt. It was the fear that somehow the fists were going right into him, right through him, and that the damage they were doing was never going to go away. The fear got worse before each blow, colder inside his brain and rushing through his heart, until it seemed like he'd die of fear like a rabbit in a snare.

Half an hour later, the door of his cell was finally shut behind him. He climbed onto the bed, his legs shaking. He groaned as he landed on his side and tried to find a position to lie in that didn’t hurt. A forty-five degree angle on his right side seemed to be okay. He pulled the blankets up to his shoulders and closed his eyes.

“I want to go home,” he whispered.


	15. Clint

When Clint woke up it was to hot food. The soldier who brought it placed it on the floor. As he was pulling the door closed, he said, “Director Beemer said you were to be notified that Natasha Amos was recaptured about two hours ago.”

So the commander finally had a name. Clint tried to sit up and found his kidneys protesting mightily. He leaned over the edge of the bed and dragged the tray closer. There was a cup of weak cordial that he downed gratefully. The water from the sink tasted like chemical crap. Clint strongly suspected that in a place like this it was recycled from all sources, including the sewage. When he put the cup down and reached for a bread roll, the soldier was still standing in the doorway. He was a young guy with a buzz cut that didn’t do his big ears any favours.

“Does Butthole Beemer want a reply?” Clint asked.

“Oh, no, uh,” the soldier pinked a little. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to ask, but why’re you here? Are you a mutant or something?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Clint tore into the bread roll with his teeth and propped himself up a little in the bed. When the soldier still didn’t leave, he frowned. “I don’t know, okay? You’ll have to ask the top arsehole himself. Or Mr Coulson,” Clint paused until he’d finished chewing his mouthful. He’d barely thought about the guy who’d tried to get them out. “What happened to him, anyway?”

“Agent Coulson? I think he’s being detained in one of the ground bases,” the soldier said. “They’re trying to charge him with treason. I don’t get what he did, he always seemed like a nice guy.”

“He tried to stop you and your fucking S.H.I.E.L.D. from kidnapping us. Apparently he had a different opinion from Beemer as to our threat level,” Clint grunted. “Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”

“Oh,” said the soldier, looking a little embarrassed. “Um. Do you want me to find you some books or something?”

“Huh?”

“It must be boring in here.”

Clint really wasn’t a big reader. He usually made things up for his English Class diary or had Bruce recount the plots and themes of famous novels (Bruce provided lots of sound effects). But the guy was right about being bored. “Sure, why not.”

“I’ll talk to my captain,” the soldier said, backing out and closing the door behind him.

The next day, the tests started. If Clint thought he’d been bored before, he hadn’t known the half of what true boredom was. Every day he was let out of his cell so that S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologists and neuroscientists could spent two to three hours sticking him in MRI machines, testing his reactions, making him play inane colour-matching games on a computer, and showing him pictures of people and things while he was wired up with electrodes all over his scalp. They seemed to be trying to prove that he recognised the images. He didn’t.

“Do you know what this is?” the head psychologist asked, holding up a printed piece of paper with six digits on it. She was a black-haired woman with a weepy voice.

Clint’s eyes widened, “Yeah, hang on… I think…”

The two scientists leaned forward, holding their breaths.

“It’s your mother’s phone number. Sorry I never called her back.”

The weepy woman slumped. Her partner, a blond guy who didn’t talk much, put the paper down with a heavy sigh. Clint tipped his chair back until he was balancing on its two back legs.

“Do you really have to make this so difficult, Mr Taylor?” the weepy doctor pleaded.

“Give me a reason not to,” Clint raised one eyebrow. “Let me see my friends.”

“Director Beemer will not allow that any time soon,” she replied. Clint folded his arms and stared at her, refusing to make a sound for the rest of the interview.

That evening his meal was brought by the big-eared soldier again. He also tossed a battered paperback onto the end of Clint’s bed with a smile. “Best I could do, sorry. It’s a James Bond collection.”

“Thanks,” Clint said, and he could hear the teenage distrust in his own voice. He swallowed. “Really, thanks.”

“It’s okay,” the soldier went back to the door. “By the way, I heard Agent Coulson has been released. The boys said Stark Industries waded into the mess and got the Canadian government involved. They didn’t know Coulson was arrested in their territory and they’re pretty pissed about it. It’s a headache for everyone.”

“Oh, boo-hoo,” Clint snapped, picking up the paperback and flipping through to the first page. Big-ears laughed and left him to eat. 

\---

The next day he was escorted from his cell as usual and taken to the conference room that had been turned into a temporary psych lab for Dr Weepy and her quiet partner. There his heart did a triple pirouette to see Natasha sitting on the couch at the back of the room with her own pair of beefy soldier-guards. She was sitting perfectly still like a cat waiting to pounce, wearing an orange jumpsuit that clashed horribly with her hair. She was also cuffed at wrists and ankles. She shot to her feet as he walked in.

Big-ears was one of the guards that had escorted him from his cell, and he started to talk. “I’ve been told this visit is conditional on your further cooperation with the tests-"

Clint didn’t wait for permission. He bounded across the carpet and swept Natasha up as he reached her, gripping her under her hips and spinning around. She gave an annoyed growl but looped her chained wrists over his head and it to her chest. He dropped her back onto her feet as his bruises started to ache again.

“You’ve got twenty minutes,” one of Natasha’s guards said blankly. Clint glanced around and pulled her over to sit down at the conference desk in the middle of the room. It was the furthest they could both get from their respective soldiers.

“So they’ve been testing you too?” she asked.

“Every fucking day.”

“Do you know why?”

Clint shrugged. “For some reason they want to bring out our past lives?”

Natasha leaned in, lowering her voice. “I think it’s the opposite, Clint. Do you remember what Hulk said? That we used to work for this place? I think they want to be sure that we _don’t_ remember our previous lives. That’s what would make us a threat to them.”

“What? They think we’ll sell sixteen-plus-year-old intel to the Mutant Brotherhood or some shit?”

“Or someone else will kidnap us and force it out of us,” Natasha’s voice was emotionless, like they were just discussing homework. “Director Beemer came in and lectured me after I was recaptured. He told me escape was more dangerous for me than staying here. He claimed half the reason they took us in was because there were other people out there looking for us. Bad people.”

“He’s a putrid sack of testicles,” Clint spat. “He’d say anything to keep us under control.”

“Maybe. But they spent a lot of lives and money on getting us here,” Natasha said darkly. “They must have some kind of motivation for that.”

“Have you seen anyone else?” Clint asked.

“I got caught because I broke into the med facility to see Tony and Thor,” she admitted. “That was a few days ago, but Thor had just been moved to a cell the same as ours and Tony was healthy enough to sass me. You know anything about Steve?”

“He’s being hosted in a presidential suite. His mom is second in command of this freakshow.”

_”What?”_

“I know. Anyway, I’d say he’s more comfortable than any of us,” Clint gave a lopsided grin. “Oh, more gossip. Apparently Mr Coulson was arrested for treason, but he’s been released now. Tony’s girlfriend Miss Potts started throwing her weight around.”

“Do you think she’ll get us out?” Natasha gasped.

Clint chewed the inside of his cheek. He shook his head. “Not the way Beemer talks about it. He said we’re legally wards of S.H.I.E.L.D. I think they were the ones who set up our whole lives, Nat. Who lied to our parents about our adoptions. It’s fucked up.”

“You can say that again,” she sighed and rested her head against her shoulder. “Surely it can’t legal, holding us here against our will.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Even if our parents could bring a case to court, I’m sure S.H.I.E.L.D. would draw a custody battle out for years, and once we're of age they probably know how to play federal security laws like a fucking squeezebox.”

Natasha was silent. At last she raised her head. “I hope Bruce is okay.”

“I’m just glad he’s not stuck in here.”

They traded jibes and empty plots to make Beemer pay for everything he’d done until their twenty minutes were up. As her guards approached, Natasha grabbed his collar and kissed him so hard he thought it would take a crow bar to pry them apart, but she let him go just as took a hold of her arms. 

His lips felt swollen and he touched them tentatively, not clear on what she had been trying to communicate, but then he thought maybe he understood: it was a show she was putting on, not just of defiance but to portray them both as passionate children, because everybody cheered those sorts of people. Her eyes were burning as she looked back at him, totally unashamed. Clint was glad he had long sleeves to cover the yellowing bruises on his ribs and arms. He honestly had no idea what she might have done if she’d seen them.

He answered the psychologists’ questions as best he could that day. There was no one waiting for him the next day, but the day after that he finished the tests and looked up to see Steve being brought into conference room. Steve’s shaky smile was still warm and homely as apple-pie, and Clint grinned back. Once again they were given twenty minutes, though the guards were sticking close by today so there was little privacy.

Steve confirmed that he was being given the same tests as Clint and Natasha, and brought Clint the news that he’d seen Thor the day before, and Thor had spoken to Natasha yesterday morning. Thor had promised to try and contact Tony when he next had his bandages changed in the medical bay. All the information Clint had given Natasha had already gone round everybody except Tony, then. In return Steve reported that Tony was very much on the mend. He’d got that titbit from his mother, who was still looking in on him every day.

“I told her to stop coming,” Steve said darkly, scrubbing both hands through his hair. “I don’t want to talk to her.”

“I know you’re sore about it, but you’ve got to take advantage of it,” Clint insisted. “She’s already bringing you news. Ask if you can get Internet access. Ask if you can contact our parents, let them know we're alive. My dads will be going spare, Steve.”

“They’ll never let me.”

“It can’t hurt to ask,” Clint had to fight not to get impatient. Steve agreed to see what he could do, but that didn't seem like enough to Clint. He’d endure anything for five minutes with his parents and here was Steve bitching about spending quality time with his mom. 

\---

That night Clint finished the first James Bond novel in the thick paperback that Big-ears had given him. It had taken a while, despite all his spare hours. Books really weren’t his thing. He amused himself by imagining Natasha as Bond while he read, which was fun and occasionally quite arousing when the romance came in. He debated whether it was worth having a wank in front of the security camera and decided Beemer would probably use it against him somehow. Also, he was pretty sure Natasha would give him a near-fatal wedgie if she ever suspected he’d wanked off to lesbian fantasies of her, and it was the sort of thing he would totally admit next time Tony got him drunk. If Tony ever had a chance to get him drunk again. If their lives weren't going to be regulated and controlled from now on.

The next day it was Natasha once again who was waiting in the psych lab. She didn’t seem as affectionate as last time, and she sat them down as far away from the guards as they could get. There were shadows under her eyes and a nervous tremor in one of her knees. Captivity was not healthy for her, Clint thought. Or maybe after her escape attempt they might be keeping her under much more extreme conditions than him.

“Has something happened?” he hissed.

“I’m fine, they let me see Tony yesterday. He’s adamant that whatever happens, we cannot let them know if we start to remember. We need them to believe that we’re new people or they'll never let us go.”

“But we are new people,” Clint pointed out.

Natasha grabbed his hand. “Tony says that if our procedural memory from our old lives is reawakening, then conscious recall could be close behind, especially since S.H.I.E.L.D. seems determined to trigger it before someone else does. And there's more. It's not just us that we're protecting. Thor heard some agents talking about other kids. Others like us, who had past lives and got adopted out by S.H.I.E.L.D. - they mentioned a girl called Abigail Brand, but from what they said Thor thinks there are more. None of them are on the helicarrier, but Beemer has agents keeping a close eye on them, ready to bring them in if they show any sign of reverting to their old selves. If they pull the memories out of us, Clint, they'll take these others kids too. Tony says we should go back to refusing the tests and sabotaging them in any way we can – even if they don’t let us see one another again. ”

“Alright. I’ll try. Nat, what the fuck's wrong? Why're you so jumpy?”

She shook her head. "I'm fine."

She was keeping her guards in her periphery vision. Clint leaned right in, pressing his forehead to hers as if they could pass their thoughts telepathically. "Tell me."

She closed her eyes and her fingers tightened over this. “I think I'm remembering. It's like... just bits, like a dream you'd mostly forgotten... but it's there. And I don't want these memories. They’re trying to bring the _old us_ out and, fucking hell, I don’t want to become that woman. I want to be me.”

There was such horror in her voice that he knew there was more she couldn't speak aloud. He sat with her in silence for a while.

“We’re gonna get out, Nat, I promise. We’re a pain in the ass to have around. Sooner or later they’ll realise that and kick us back to the curb. Back to boring life in Bangor.” 

“I’m sure you’re right,” she smiled without much enthusiasm.

“Damn right I’m right,” he kissed her forehead and held her gaze as the soldiers escorted her out.

\---

He felt kind of bad as he sat in the day's tests, refusing to answer Dr Weepy’s questions and taking off the electrodes every few minutes on the pretence that they were starting to itch. She looked like she really might cry this time, and she was just trying to do her job. About two hours in, she called over a gangly technician and spoke to him and her partner quietly. The blond, quiet psychologist seemed reluctant about something, but eventually nodded. The technician left and soon returned. He handed Dr Weepy a handful of steak knives that he must have just grabbed from the nearest tearoom.

"Now, Clint," Dr Weepy said earnestly. "I want to test your accuracy with these."

"Um," Clint raised his eyebrow. "Do you have permission for this?"

"Not exactly, but I'm trusting you not to stab anyone in this room. I think you're a good kid, Clint. The helicarrier is airborne so it's not like you've got anywhere to escape to. Am I going to regret doing this?"

Clint thought about his chances of getting home if he took Dr Weepy hostage with one of the steak knives. He wasn't as smart as Tony, but he'd still give that plan a less that two percent chance of success. He thought back to that moment in the cabin when he'd lifted the bow out of Mr Coulson's bag. It had fitted into his palm as comfortably as his own skin. Shooting the soldiers by the lake had been horrible, had brought bile to his throat, but the act itself had been incredible. His mind serene, his body knowing how to move and shift and release without a moment's struggle. For the first time in his life, he'd been perfect at something. He really did want to test that again.

He put his hand on his chest. "I solemnly swear to behave myself."

Dr Weepy ripped a page out of her notebook, drew a rough bullseye on it with a red pen and sellotaped it to the back of a conference room sofa. Everyone gathered at the other end of the room with Clint as Dr Weepy handed him the knives. He took a step forward, gripping the blade between thumb and forefinger. He closed one eye and hurled the knife at the sofa. It bounced off a good three feet away from the target.

"Fuck."

He took a breath as he gripped the second knife. Some part of him knew how to hold it, knew where to place his feet, but he needed to get back into the head-space he'd been in when he'd shot the soldiers. Okay, maybe not the wanting-to-hurt-people head-space. But that perfect calm.

He pitched the second knife. It clattered against the wall above the couch.

"Come on, Clint!" the technician burst out behind him. "You can do it!"

Clint closed his eyes and tried to think only of the piece of paper in front of him. As he opened them, he drew back his arm and threw the third knife. With a dull thud, he saw it land in the exact centre of the target. Without a millisecond's pause he followed it up with the final two blades. Bang on. The technician cheered and even Dr Weepy clapped her hands with a broad grin. Only Mr Quiet seemed unimpressed.

"Again, again," Clint bolted down the length room and collected the knives. "Let me try something!"

Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back the target, raised the knife in front of him - Dr Weepy and the technician drew back quickly - and tossed it over his shoulder. He threw all five with only a couple of seconds pause. When he turned around, all but one had hit the paper close to the centre. They were buried so deep that the sellotape had come loose and the target was only kept in place by the blades.

“Yes,” Clint pumped his fist in as dignified a manner as he could manage.

“Wow,” Dr Weepy gaped. “So it's true. Perfect motor memory.”

"That was amazing!" the technician raised his hand and Clint high-fived him-

_-woodsmoke and grass and-_

"You okay?" the psychologist asked. 

Clint plastered a smile on his face. "Yeah, fine, it's just pretty weird, huh?"

He gripped the back of the nearest chair and leaned on it, but his thoughts were flashing like a camera bulb in a black room, he was trying to catch a flood with his fingers-

_-"You're amazing, Clint!" Barney said, holding out his upturned palm, and Clint slapped it right in the middle. Barney's hand was big and calloused from working hard, pulling ropes taut and carrying heavy frames and barrels and boxes of food, but he'd taken time off to watch his little brother's progress. Clint was so happy he thought he'd burst and the smell of woodsmoke and grass and rubbish were thick in the air and he stuck his thumb in his mouth and Barney cuffed him on the side of his head "Hey, I told you not to do that anymore! Don't be a baby!" and Clint had bitten his thumb so hard when Barney hit him that some skin had come off and it really hurt but he mustn't cry and Barney had been so proud a moment ago and now Clint had spoiled it-_

"Clint?" Dr Weepy's hand was on his arm. "Are you seeing something, Clint?"

He forced himself to laugh. "Nah, nah, just a dizzy spell. That's the first exercise I've done in a week."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, fucking hell, I'm fine," he pulled away from her. Fuck these people, what was he doing? High-fives and mind games - all they wanted was a good result and a paycheck, they didn't care if he was locked up for the rest of his life.

"Are we done here?" he demanded.

They called his guards and let him go back to his cell. He lay on the bed with his arm draped over his eyes, pressing down until he saw stars. A brother. He'd had a brother. There wasn't any question. Those were his memories, real memories from another life. The reality of it jarred him, made his skull feel too small. No matter how he strained, he couldn't recall his brother's face, only his words and the size of his hands. Clint must have been young back then. He felt like he was digging a hole in his own white matter trying to find more details.

How old was that memory? Was his brother still alive? His real parents? Had they looked for him, had they watched home videos of him and planted an apple tree in his memory and moved on? Did he have a sister-in-law, little nieces and nephews, did some old couple dying in a rest home somewhere have a faded picture of him on their nightstand? He had to find out, he had to find them--

He felt an overwhelming wave of guilt. Poppa and Dad were his real parents. Those other people might be a part of his history, but they could never be his family. That life was gone. Natasha and Bruce, Tony and Steve and Thor - they were more important than some random folks he'd picked up on his astrally projected jaunts through the AKA Catalogue of Clint Bartons--

Barton.

His name had been Barton.

"Go awaaaay," Clint groaned, rolling onto his side and clamping the pillow over his head.


	16. Clint

Big-ears must have snuck in without waking him up, because there was food sitting by the door when he next opened his eyes. He hadn't even realised he'd been dozing. Time was blurring together and he hadn't seen the sun since that day on the bridge when he'd spoken to Natasha over the intercom. When he peered at himself in the polished metal sheet that served as a mirror, he could see exhaustion in his eyes, and his skin was breaking out in spots. This was after less than a fortnight - the thought of months in this tiny room, or years, or the rest of his life - no. They had to get out, just like he'd promised Nat.

The next day there was no one waiting for him in the conference room except Dr Weepy and Mr Quiet. It wasn’t really a surprise, of course, now that he’d gone back to playing the difficult teen, but it still made his mood sink down somewhere black and sluggish. He wanted to talk to the others about what he’d remembered. They were the only ones who would understand.

“You can just sit and relax for a while,” Dr Weepy said, waving her pen at the chairs. “We’re waiting for someone.”

Clint couldn’t muster the effort to ask whom. He sat and fiddled with a trailing thread on his sleeve. He had been wearing the same clothes since he got here. They felt worn and sticky and he was pretty sure he smelled god-awful.

When the door opened it took him a few seconds before he turned his head to look, but when he did he jumped out of his chair. Steve’s mother, Maria Hill, the Royal Queen Traitor herself, stood there in a slick S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform with her hands behind her back and a staunch pose. She gave him a cursory glance and he shot her his filthiest look, but she simply turned and nodded to Dr Weepy.

“Please begin. Pretend I’m not here.”

“Of course, Deputy Director,” the psychologist opened up her laptop and fiddled around for a while until she found the folder she was looking for (Clint noticed with a snort that her desktop was entirely covered in clutter). Then it was just back to one of the usual tests; stock photos and random shapes that were supposed to act as controls or maybe prime his brain, god knew what. He was asked to identify what was in the picture, even when it was something as obvious as a drawing of a banana. Today he replied with as few words as possible and only a shrug if he could get away with it.

About half an hour in, a picture of his brother appeared. Clint’s fingers bit down on his knees under the table, blinking at the photo. He’d seen it before during the testing rounds, but as far as he’d known it was another control photo. This time he recognised it instantly. The picture showed a brown-haired boy in his pre-teens, standing unsmiling in front of a white wall as if for a particularly unflattering school photo. Clint’s blood, Clint’s DNA. It was something he’d never had before in his life.

“Some boy,” Clint forced himself to say.

Dr Weepy skipped to the next photo, but Maria Hill raised her hand. “Stop. Go back,” she stood up and put her hand on the back of Clint’s chair. “Are you sure this isn’t familiar, Clint?”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Clint had been friends with her son since he was twelve years old. She knew him. What if she knew when he was lying? She was a talented liar herself, after all.

“I don’t fucking know him,” Clint said emphatically. “I don’t know a lot of things, Maria. How about _you_ tell me who he is?”

His aggression seemed to have covered up his nerves. She withdrew, waving her hand. “Carry on.”

The tests only took another hour, and Maria left before the end of them without saying another word. Once she was gone he stopped answering Dr Weepy’s questions at all, pulling his feet up onto the chair and wrapping his arms around his knees. He stared at the screen as the images flashed past and the psychologists became more and more desperate to make him answer. At last they let him go back to his cell.

He lay on his side and stared at the wall, trailing in and out of sleep. There were no tests the next day, or the day after that.

Clint couldn’t remember how long he’d been in the cell, but the lethargy was partly broken about the third day after the tests had stopped. The helicarrier was landing for a few days to refuel and allow the crew to change shifts. Big-ears told him about it when he brought his food that morning, and rambled on about how he would be going home to his girlfriend in a couple of days when they docked at Coney Island. Apparently they were going to fly to California and do a cycle tour of the vineyards.

“I’ve never had a proper girlfriend,” Clint said. “I suppose I never will, if they keep me here for the rest of my life.”

“Um,” said Big-ears, but left without finding anything to say.

That afternoon – Clint’s body told him it was afternoon, but he wasn’t sure – he heard the engines change their pace and soon enough came the shudder of the carrier landing in the water. When he closed his eyes, Clint could just feel the distant rocking of the ocean. It was his only proof that the outside world still existed, and it soon sent him to sleep.

\---

When he woke up, it was to a piercing ringing that he initially thought must just be inside his own head. He rolled over and tried to ignore it, but _damn_ it was annoying. At last he sat up and covered his ears to find the noise at least a little bit dampened, which means it was definitely coming from the corridor outside. Now that he was waking up properly, it sounded like an alarm.

Oh, fucking fuck – was it a fire alarm? Was there a fire on the carrier? Were they sinking? They’d evacuate the prisoners, right? They wouldn’t just leave him to die--

Clint slid out of bed and ran to the door. He hammered as hard as he could with his fists. “Hey, is someone out there? Hey! What’s going on?” he looked up at the security camera, and then hurled one of his shoes at it. “I want out!”

The ringing was suddenly interrupted by a recorded, genderless voice. “This sector is under evacuation. Please proceed to the top deck. This sector is under evacuation,” and then the ringing returned. It sounded louder than ever.

“Help!” Clint slapped the door. “Somebody let me out!”

To his shock, it moved under his hands. He stumbled back as the door swung open. Big-ears stood there with his hair mussed up and his expression groggy from being woken so rudely. “Come on, kid, let’s get out of here.”

“What’s happening?” Clint yelled.

“It’s the oxygen alarm,” the soldier called back. “Detects a drop in O2. For when there’s a life-support malfunction at high altitude.”

“But we’re on the water-“

“I know, and the alarm’s going off all over the ship. That means either a drill, or we’re under attack.”

“Thanks for coming to get me,” Clint gasped.

Big-ears turned to reply as they swerved around a corner, and immediately collided with a man coming the other way. The stranger was in an ungainly gas mask and had three more masks hooked over his arm. He caught his balance and growled. “Watch it, private!”

“Sorry, sir!” Big-ears shot off a quick salute despite the alarm still screaming at them.

“At ease. I’m here to evacuate the prisoners,” the man said. “Are there any more in this wing?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. You carry on and find your sector leader, private, I’ll take this one to the secure evacuation bay.”

Clint just wanted them to hurry up with their stupid formality and get the hell out, but he felt Big-ears’ grip on his wrist tighten and looked up to find the young soldier was frowning.

“Sir, he’s no danger. I’ll take him to general evacuation area, sir.”

“That’s not your call to make. Now get moving,” the man shifted where he stood, and Clint could see he was widening his stance to make it more stable. It occurred to Clint that if Big-ears had just got out of bed, he might not be carrying any weapons.

“Sir, may I see your badge please, sir?” Big-ears said hopefully.

“Of course, private,” said the man, reaching into his pocket and passing Big-ears something white.

The soldier stared at it, and said, “This is a parking meter ticket-“ just before the stranger whipped out his handgun and slammed it into his temple. Clint jerked away as Big-ears crumpled to the ground. The soldier was trying to stand up as the stranger kicked him flat onto his front, straddled him and handcuffed him behind his back. He got up, ripped open the plexiglass fire-hose box nearby and tied the hose as tight as he could around the soldier’s wrists.

It had all taken less than fifteen seconds, and it was only as the stranger stood up again that it occurred to Clint to run. He hadn’t forgotten what Natasha had said – that other people might be after them too. Bad people. He turned and bolted back the way they’d come.

“Hey!” the stranger yelled, and heavy footsteps rung out above the wailing alarm. “Hey, stop! _Clint, stop!_ ”

The sound of his own name made him look back, and the stranger put on a burst of speed and grabbed his shirt. Clint wriggled, and the stranger pulled up his gas mask.

“Clint, it’s me,” he panted, “It’s Phil.”

Clint had never been so glad to see a schoolteacher before, even a fake one. Mr Coulson was smiling faintly at him like he was waiting for him to get the joke. Clint let out a huge breath and Mr Coulson started to wrestle one of the gas masks over his head. “Put this on, we have to move.”

“We can’t leave the soldier, he’ll die-” Clint babbled as he pulled the mask over his chin. Mr Coulson tightened the straps behind his head.

“He’ll be fine,” Mr Coulson replied, tugging his own mask back down.

“The oxygen!” Clint’s voice was weirdly echoed inside the mask.

“The air is fine, kiddo, the mask is to hide your face,” Mr Coulson grabbed his hand and started to run. His fingers were dry and rough around Clint’s sweaty hand, like Poppa’s, and like Barney’s in his memory. Clint could barely keep up. He wanted to yell sorry at Big-ears as they passed him in the corridor, but they sprinted on and the moment was gone.

There were two more figures in gas masks waiting at the next corner, both wearing undersized S.H.I.E.L.D. jackets and trousers. Clint realised by the height and shoulder-width of the nearer one that it was Thor, pressed against the wall with his fists ready. The other had Steve’s blue eyes peering through the glass. They both relaxed when they saw Coulson and Clint.

“Put these on,” Coulson dragged a matching uniform out of the bag and shoved it at Clint, who pulled the trousers on over his jeans and zipped up the jacket to the neck. He hadn’t brought his shoes from his cell, but hopefully no one would be studying his feet.

Coulson waved to make sure he had their attention. “I have to go after Natasha. If I’m not back up here in two minutes – time it, Steve – then you go down this hall to the stairs, keep going up until you find a crowd and follow it onto the deck. Go to the starboard side of the tower. If anyone asks who you are, say you’re cadets with the fourth squadron. Repeat it.”

“Tower, starboard side, fourth squadron cadets,” Steve echoed obediently.

“Well done. Two minutes, then go,” he turned and dashed away down another corridor.

“You alright?” Thor yelled over the siren, gripping Clint’s arm.

Clint nodded. “Did you fuckers know this was gonna happen?”

“No!” Steve yelled. Clint couldn’t see enough of his face to know if he was smiling or frowning. He checked his watch. It seemed like no time at all he was checking it again and saying, “That’s two minutes.”

Clint shook his head. “Give it another minute.”

“No,” Steve looked down the corridor where Coulson had disappeared. “We have to go, like he said.”

“We’re not leaving Nat!”

“If we don’t follow his instructions, we could ruin the whole plan,” Steve said firmly. “Come on.”

Thor was following Steve, trying to nudge Clint along with him. Clint absolutely, positively didn’t want to leave, but he also didn’t want to be left alone with the screaming siren and the possibility of discovery at any second. He jogged after Thor.

On the next deck up that found straggling groups of maintenance crew with some sleepy cooks from the kitchen and mingled in with them. A few of the mechanics had self-sufficient masks on like their own, and one of them was waving a hand-held sensor to test the air as they went, calling out, “It’s clear!” to the unmasked group. Soon they were on the top deck of the carrier, the carrier squatting in the midst of a dark ocean. There were clouds overhead and a faint spray of rain every few seconds. Clint’s skin broke out in goose pimples immediately, so he shielded himself from the wind by tucking in behind Thor. He had to wipe rainwater from his mask every minute.

“Which way do we go?” Thor asked, not looking even a little bit cold. Most of the other evacuees were splitting off and heading to different parts of the deck, as wardens waved bright orange lights to guide them.

“Starboard side. Tower,” Steve said through his chattering teeth.

“Which side’s starboard?” Thor frowned.

Clint shrugged. Steve glanced back and forth at the two sides of the control tower. “Um. That way,” he said at last.

They headed toward one side of the tower, trying to shift from one group of grouchy, half-asleep S.H.I.E.L.D. employees to the next. This wouldn’t have been a big problem if it was a school fire drill – Thor was basically a human icebreaker – but when half the crowd were ex-marines or secret service professionals, it was a bit more nerve-wracking. Worse still, although quite a few people had acquired masks, most of them weren’t wearing them out here in the open, so their disguises were suddenly more prominent than inconspicuous.

“We’re gonna die,” Clint muttered. “We’re gonna get shot.”

“Bro, there’s a time and a place,” Steve grumbled in his ear. "Stop talking."

They finally broke out of the crowd and were almost at the tower when Steve motioned to get Clint’s attention. He was looking back over his shoulder. Clint tugged Thor's elbow and they all followed Steve’s pointing finger. Huddled in a thick blanket in the midst of the crowd nearby was Tony. He was flanked by a man in a white coat and a guy who looked like he was freezing to death in a set of nurse’s scrubs.

“Mr Coulson said he went to the med bay first, but it had already been evacuated,” explained Thor.

“We’ve got to go get him,” Steve hissed. He reached up and pulled off his mask, handing it to Clint. “I’m the only one of us the doctors haven’t seen face to face. Go around the corner and wait there for me, okay?”

“What are you going to do?” Thor frowned through his splattered mask.

Steve spread his arms. “Everybody trusts a man in uniform, right?” and then he was jogging off towards Tony and the medical crew.

Clint and Thor ducked into the shadow of the tower. There was a wide walkway stacked with lifeboats and no sign of Mr Coulson. Clint peered around the corner and saw that Steve had reached the crowd of evacuees. He stood with his hands on his hips, gesturing confidently at Tony. The doctors glanced between them, but Tony thankfully didn’t seem to be reacting to Steve’s face. Maybe he was just too sick and miserable to act suspicious. Clint hoped this exposure to the elements wasn’t going to make his chest infection any worse.

“Any sign of Natasha?” Thor asked, leaning over the top of Clint’s head.

Clint scanned the crowd again, but he couldn’t see anyone familiar at all. He wondered if Mr Coulson had a plan to cover Natasha’s hair, not to mention trying to hide her orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. Had the poor guy had been warned about the extra security that Natasha was under? Maybe he'd already been caught and shot by Natasha’s guards. What the fuck were they supposed to do if Mr Coulson never showed?

“He’s coming back,” Thor said. Sure enough, Steve had a soldierly grip on Tony’s upper arm and was striding across the deck with his head held high, shoving Tony ahead. It looked pretty convincing. Steve's face broke into a relieved grin as he got close to the corner where the others were hiding. Clint looked behind them to where the doctor and nurse were still standing.

They were talking to a soldier in full S.H.I.E.L.D. livery, and pointing after Steve and Tony.

“Shit,” Clint whacked Thor’s arm. “I think his cover's blown.”

“Don’t scare him. Let him keep walking like he knows what he’s doing,” Thor muttered. Finally, after what seemed like about six and a half years, Steve reached the shadows of the walkway. Clint wiped water off the glass of his mask and peered through the rain at the crowd.

Two soldiers were breaking away and heading in a beeline towards them.

“Fuck, we’re made, go, go!” Clint ripped off his mask and threw it down behind him, clutching Tony’s free arm as Steve looked over his shoulder. Thor hurled his mask over the side into the ocean and they started to run.

“Guys! Guys, this is fantastic, but where the hell are we going?” Tony yelled hoarsely.

“Just run, find a hiding place, anywhere,” Steve replied. He and Clint dragged a stumbling Tony after Thor, who was well in the lead.

They were running out of deck – there was nowhere to go. Thor tried the doors they passed, but they were all bolted shut. At the end of the walkway they skidded around the corner onto the rear of the ship. They were right in the face of the wind now, pushing them against the side of the control tower. The walkway headed further on, but Thor made a running jump for the next level up, catching the bottom rail of another platform above them and quickly heaving his feet up onto the edge. He leaned back down with one hand and caught hold of Clint’s wrist, then swung him right up onto the edge beside him. They both stretched down to catch Tony’s hands as Steve practically threw their resident genius up to them, and hauled him over the railing as Steve clambered to join them.

“Stop!” came the distant cry as the soldiers slid to a halt around the corner. One of them levelled his rifle. “Stop, or we’ll fire!”

“Go! Go!” Steve yelled, his hands pushing Tony and Clint into crouches as they ran. There was the rattle of shots behind them, but within a few feet they were protected by the lip of the walkway. It didn’t take long to sprint the width of the control tower and then they had nowhere to go but down to the first level.

“We’re just going to end up where we started,” Clint yelled. “We’re running in circles.”

Thor leaned out over the railing. His hand flew up to point through the rain. “There’s people. I think it’s Coulson and Natasha!”

“But this is port. Mr Coulson said starboard,” Steve insisted.

“Are you kidding me?” Tony yelled. He pointed. “The boat goes in _that direction_ , Steve! We just came from port! Christ!”

“Stop arguing and fucking move!” Clint barked. He climbed over the railing and dropped down onto the deck below, rolled as he hit the ground and came up running. Woah. That was kind of cool. He thought, _Thanks, Clint Barton, whoever you were._ As turned to see if the others were behind him he saw Steve safely lower Tony down to Thor.

“Where have you been?” Mr Coulson demanded, pulling off his gas mask as they ran up to him. Natasha was still in her orange jumpsuit. Clint definitely wanted to know how they had got out without being spotted, but he decided to ask later. If they survived till later.

“Sorry,” Steve panted. “Long story. We’re being chased.”

Mr Coulson looked behind them. “Okay,” he said with only the tiniest hint of concern in his voice. “Okay, then we’re going to jump.”

“Where?” Thor asked, wiping rain out of his beard.

“Off the boat,” Coulson said calmly. He waved his hand at the thin rail that edged the deck of the carrier. “In your own time. But not actually, because we’re about to be fired upon.”

“Right,” Thor rubbed his hands together, sprinted for the railing and was up and perching on top for only a moment before he dived straight off into the churning sea below.

“He is truly not a man who fears death,” Tony said in awe. He gave a yelp a moment later as Steve swept him up over his shoulder and bolted for the railing, climbing over and then looking back at Natasha and Clint before nodding and letting himself fall backwards. Clint could hear Tony yelling, “No, wait, I changed my mind--!” before they disappeared.

Coulson kicked off his shoes and loosened his tie. “Natasha, you’re going to find swimming hard in those cuffs, so I think you better go piggy-back on me-“

There was the rattle of bullets through the hiss of the rain. Clint found himself suddenly jerked away and weighed down. He realised Mr Coulson had grabbed him and pulled him and Natasha behind his body. Then they were running for the edge, vaulting the rail as they hit it, and suddenly the chasm of the open ocean loomed deep and swollen beneath them and Clint found himself falling and falling, his brain screaming with adrenaline –

His body hit the water and he found himself buried alive in the Atlantic, the cold sending needles through his bones and turning his muscles to crystal. He kicked out and was glad he’d left his shoes in his cell, but he couldn’t see the surface, he couldn’t see anything but black, and his arms heaved to pull him up through the water but he was never going to get there – his lungs began to burn – it had to be there, it had to be, unless he’d been killed when he hit the water and this was death – death was drowning for eternity – he didn’t know what he’d done in his past life to deserve that –

His head broke the surface and he sucked in the air with a heaving gasp. He wiped stringing seawater out of his eyes and looked up. The side of the carrier loomed like a mountain swooping down over them.

“Natasha!” Steve’s voice called plaintively from somewhere nearby. “Thor!”

“I’m here!” Thor yelled, coughing up what sounded like most of a swimming pool. “Clint?”

Clint tried to yell and a sudden wave thrust water into his throat. He hacked it up, raising his arm, but it was so dark under the shadow of the carrier. They’d never see him.

Suddenly red light like a star from hell burst across Clint’s face. He blinked against its glare and saw Mr Coulson holding a flare high above his head, treading water with Natasha’s arms wrapped around his neck. The pale faces of Steve and Tony clinging together were further on, their hair wet and sodden in their eyes, and Thor was beyond them, his arms pumping in and out of the water as he tried to swim back to the others.

“The current’s pulling us apart,” Natasha yelled.

“They’re almost here,” Mr Coulson called. He spotted Clint as the crest of a wave lifted him up. “Clint, watch out!”

Clint looked back over his shoulder. A small boat, solid black with a covered nose, had emerged out of the shadows of the carrier. Someone in a raincoat was leaning over the side with a life ring. Clint raised his hand and the figure tossed him the ring and hauled him in. Another man left the controls of the boat to drag Clint up out of the water and deposit him on the floor of the vessel. He lay gasping, too exhausted to move. His whole body shook from the cold. Within a minute, Mr Coulson and Natasha were dumped beside them, and after a sickeningly long wait there came Steve, Tony, and finally Thor.

One of the men returned to the controls of the boat while the other herded them, crawling and stumbling, into the tiny cabin. In the faint light of a single bulb he pushed back his hood to reveal a dark-skinned man with close-cropped, greying hair.

“Come on, out of those clothes, you’re gonna freeze to death,” he said, pulling armfuls of blankets out of the seatbox. “What the hell happened, Coulson? I didn’t see your signal.”

“Wasn’t quite time for a signal, Rhodey,” Coulson said, passing the blankets along the line. “Thanks for sticking close. We should probably, uh, move quickly.”

“I got that impression,” Rhodey shook his head and slapped the side of the boat. “Let’s move, Happy! Get the engine into gear!” 

He suddenly stilled, straightening up slowly. Clint looked around and realised he was staring at Tony. “Wow. Pepper said, but – that’s creepy.”

“Excuse me, I’m right here, and my face is not creepy,” Tony droned. He gave a hacking cough into his fist and Steve draped a blanket around his shoulders. “Can I have a hospital bed without handcuffs now, please?”


	17. Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of update yesteday. We're at the penultimate chapter now - it may not be completely satisfying, but trust me, it's an improvement on the pre-beta'd version, which was essentially "ALIEN GLADIATOR TIMEY-WIMEY SCIENCE-MAGIC".

With all the excitement of the night, Steve felt like he'd never sleep soundly again. He promptly passed out on the helicopter ride to Stark Tower and woke up to Tony’s finger in his ear and Clint’s bray of laughter. Steve jerked away. “Ugh! Get off me.”

“My God. Helicopter rotor blades for an hour, he doesn’t even twitch, but I stick one little digit in him and he’s bolt upright,” he gave Steve a very serious look. “You don’t love me.”

“We’re landing in a few minutes, kids,” came Mr Coulson’s voice through their headphones. “Check your seatbelts.”

Steve sat up properly to look out the window. New York City was spread out below them, glinting gold and orange in the first light of dawn. It was beautiful, except for the part where it wasn’t home. Steve wondered if he had a home in Bangor any longer, if his mother would go back to the house where he’d been raised, if he would ever get to play football for his high school. He breathed out and tried to appreciate the view.

There was a slim, middle-aged woman waiting for them on the pad. And right beside her stood –

“Bruce!” Natasha pressed her face to the window, losing her composure for a moment. “That’s Bruce! Look, look!”

“I see, I see,” Steve said, a grin breaking across his face.

They pulled off their headsets and piled out of the helicopter as soon as it touched down, enveloping Bruce in five pairs of arms. He staggered under their weight and yelled that he couldn’t breathe while five people were trying to make out with him. There was a chorus of voices, “How did you get here-”, “You feel thin-”, “What was it like being huge and green-”, “We didn’t want to leave you, but Hulk said-”, “We’re so sorry-”, “How did you _get_ here-”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Bruce ducked his head, blushing furiously. “I think I walked a lot of the way. Well, the other guy walked. When I transformed back and woke up I had no clothes, but some farmers helped me out. I managed to hitchhike to Jackman and the airport there contacted Pepper.”

The woman who must be Pepper Potts greeted Mr Coulson and Rhodey with kisses on their cheeks. Tony and Steve approached her, she held out her hand for a moment as if to shake and then tucked it back at her waist.

“Hi kids,” she said, with a note of apprehension in her voice. “Come inside.”

Inside were a lot of glass walls and swooping, high ceilings. The multi-tiered room was furnished with a bar, a line of designer couches and a television was wide as a Buick. Steve didn’t realise his mouth was hanging open until Tony flicked him under the chin. Natasha and Clint dropped straight down onto the couches and Coulson wandered around doing a security sweep.

“I have to get going, Pepper, or somebody’s going to wonder which party I was at all night,” Rhodey apologised. “Let me know if you need help,” he raised his hand to Tony as he headed for the elevator. “I’ll be back, Tony.”

“Let’s get a beer,” Tony called, chuckling to himself at Rhodey’s emphatic ‘no’ and then going into another fit of coughing.

“Okay, I think maybe it’s way past bedtime,” Pepper wrung her hands. “I’ve got private, very discrete doctors just downstairs waiting for Tony and—”

“No, no,” Tony managed to clear his throat. “We’re not sleeping. We have questions.”

“A lot of questions,” agreed Thor.

“We’re not waiting another minute to ask them,” Steve agreed. “That alright, Miss?”

Pepper’s smile was very real this time. “I get that. I have a few myself. In that case, coffees might be in order.”

The coffee machine was entirely automated, but it was really good anyway. Steve held the first sip in his mouth for a moment, savouring it before he let it roll down his throat. It tasted like freedom. He sat back against the incredibly comfortable sofa. Clint tucked close to him and Natasha was half on Clint’s lap.

“So, first off, you and me,” Tony shifted forward on the couch. Pepper was perched on a footrest in front of them all. “Were we, like, married or something?”

“No, that is not the word I would use,” Pepper winced. “Though maybe it was a form of bondage.”

“How did we know each other?” Natasha asked, indicating the younger members of the gathering.

“Why is Thor bulletproof?” Steve added.

“And the Hulk thing,” Clint jumped in. "Someone explain the Hulk thing."

“Right, some of this, you’re going to have to see for yourself,” Pepper waved her hand to stop them. “Bruce and I have been going through all of Stark Industry’s files to prepare a dossier for each of you. You don’t have to share it with the others. You don’t even have to read it if you don’t want to. But you can get it from me when you’re ready.”

“When can we see our parents?” Tony asked. Steve looked at him. For once, there was not a hint of humour in his face. Of all of them, he and Clint were probably closest with their adopted families. For all the hurt Steve felt at his mother’s lies, at least he didn’t have people at home going spare about him.

Pepper looked down at her hands and then steadied her expression. “That’s harder to answer. Now that they’ve tested you to ensure your knowledge of their organisation remains locked up in your heads, S.H.I.E.L.D. may not spare the resources to reacquire you. Stark Industries is one of the most powerful corporations in the world and Beemer has bigger villains to chase than six teenagers. But for now, I think it’s safer for you to stay in Stark tower, especially Bruce. You can call your parents as soon as you want: there’s a phone in each of your rooms. If it’s possible to bring your families here, we’ll do that. Whatever you want.”

“So we’re just in a different sort of prison,” Steve said heavily.

“To our credit, it's a much, much nicer prison,” Mr Coulson interjected, coming in to stand behind Pepper. “This isn’t permanent, kids. We’ll do everything we can.”

“How the fuck did you get us out, man?” Clint asked. “That place was the goddamn Cretan Labyrinth.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the others. Mr Coulson looked at Pepper, and she nodded to him. He cleared his throat. “We had help from the inside. But this is one piece of information that needs to be kept absolutely secret. From your families and even from Rhodey,” his eyes settled on Steve. “Maria Hill arranged most of the elements in your escape. The boat and the bots that set off the oxygen detectors were Stark technology, but she gave us the intel we needed to engineer the plan. She smuggled me key codes to the helicarrier. She was the one who warned us that some of you might have started to remember. We wouldn’t have attempted anything this drastic so soon, but we had to get you out before Beemer had reason to suspect your past lives were showing through.”

Steve had remained silent throughout this monologue. He found he was clamping his teeth together so hard it hurt. He couldn’t speak for a moment, afraid his voice would come out as a squeak. Finally he managed it. “I just saw her yesterday. She didn’t mention any of this.”

“There were security cameras in your room, Steve,” Mr Coulson said quietly. “You have to understand, as Deputy Director, she knows – everything and more. She wouldn’t just be fired for betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. She would likely be very quietly killed,” he paused. “It may not be possible for you to see her. Not for a few years.”

Steve couldn’t look away from the man’s gaze. He felt like he was an hourglass with the sand pouring out far too quickly. He felt Bruce’s hand on top of his closed fist but couldn’t make himself move to grasp it.

“I told her she wasn’t my mother, and never would be,” he rasped. “That was the last thing I said to her.”

“Maybe that’ll make things easier for her,” Mr Coulson replied. “She’s a strong woman. She’ll be okay.”

There was silence for a moment. Tony, of course, broke it. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t get some shut-eye soon but can we have, like, the cliff notes version of how we. Y’know. Got reincarnated. Or whatever.”

“Yeah, I am really keen to hear that,” said Clint.

“Okay," Coulson rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see. Well, you already know you were costumed superheroes.”

“Like Spiderman?” Natasha said, with a hint of excitement.

“Yeah. You can read all about it in the files,” Mr Coulson dragged over another footrest to sit down beside Pepper. “Back in the day you regularly ran operations in partnership with S.H.I.E.L.D. Natasha and Clint were agents before they threw in their lot with the rest of you.”

“And then we all died, but SHIELD didn’t want to lose us?” guessed Tony. “So they made new Avengers in some science lab, and thought we’d just grow up and do exactly what they told us, die all over again in the service of Men in Black who we’d never even signed up with—”

“That’s not what happened, Tony,” Mr Coulson cut him off.

“Then what? How did we get here?”

“I’m trying to tell you!” there was the hint of a laugh in his voice and Thor put his hand over Tony’s mouth before he could interrupt again. Mr Coulson took a breath. “You were asked to participate on a mission with the alien intervention unit – a counterpart of our organisation called S.W.O.R.D. They were investigating the arrival of a craft in Ohio."

Mr Coulson's brow wrinkled, his gaze resting on an empty place on the wall as he threw his memories back in time. "At first, all we knew was that communication went down. We sent an emergency team to recover contact at once. I was leading it, so I was one of the first to arrive at the scene. From a distance it looked like there’d been some kind of accident – we found debris up to a mile away – but we couldn’t see any bodies,” Mr Coulson spread his hands in a shrug. “We detected signatures of Hawking radiation, which shouldn’t exist on earth, and other energy signatures that we couldn’t explain at all. I made the call to suit up in the best hazmat equipment in stock and head in cautiously.”

Mr Coulson took a breath, wrinkling his nose. “We knew something weird had happened as we started to see the damage up close. We found one of the team’s SUVs parked at the perimeter of the site. It was a mess, completely rusted through, the paintwork gone, the seats rotted away, the weapons on the trunk corroded into solid hunks of metal and plastic. There seemed to be two bodies in the front, or what was left of them – fragile skeletons, with a few thin scraps of clothes still hanging off them.”

“I think I see where this is going,” Tony said darkly.

“Huh?” Clint looked over at him. “What’s it mean?”

“Let Mr Coulson finish,” Steve elbowed him.

A smile twitched at the corner of Mr Coulson’s mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “SWORD had set up an extensive quarantine facility around ground zero, and some parts at the edge of the site seemed unaffected. We found one agent unconscious but otherwise unhurt. Our med team woke him up, but he had no information about what had happened. Later, it turned out his memory of the past two weeks had been completely wiped. We entered the quarantine zone very carefully, finding parts of the facility intact and others dangerously unstable. We had to step around walkways reduced to shapeless flecks of metal, and slicks of crude oil where there had once been plastic walls. We found two children – naked, uninjured, and very confused. We got them out of there as fast as we could and went further in. At the heart of the facility was the worst disaster zone. Initially had no idea what we were looking at,” Mr Coulson sighed. “We thought perhaps it was some kind of breeding program. A room filled with sleeping infants scattered around a lifeless, extraterrestrial artefact. But once we took the children back to base, genetic tests confirmed your identities. There were five agents besides you six, including Abigail Brand, the head of the unit. Director Fury – Beemer’s predecessor – kept the truth about the children’s identity contained. A few scientists knew, as did I. We did absolutely everything in our power to learn what had happened to you, but it shames me to say we never told anyone what we knew,” he glanced at Pepper, who was staring at a point on the floor, her lips pressed together so hard they had nearly vanished.

“What was it?” Bruce asked. “The artefact? How did it turn our lives back in time?”

“We still don’t know,” Mr Coulson shook his head. “It’s in a warehouse somewhere collecting dust. Parts of it are clearly damaged, and it has never shown any sign of retaining function. It doesn’t fit Brand’s descriptions of the crash site before her radio transmissions stopped, so we think the rest of the ship – or whatever it was – may have been destroyed in the accident. One day, maybe we’ll come across a species that recognises it and how it works.”

“So then you just gave us away?” Clint asked. “Without telling our parents what we were? How fucking _dangerous_ we were?”

“No, no, it didn’t happen like that,” Mr Coulson shook his head. “We never even considered taking you outside a SHIELD base for the first few weeks. The affected kids all had some anatomical differences from regular human children – brain structures were highly developed, teeth were present far too early, in some cases coronal sutures were already fused and had to be surgically excised. We thought you were still in there somewhere. We had our psychologists test for any sign the children remembered who they were. But the longer it went on, the sooner we had to admit there was nothing.” 

He gave a shaky laugh. “You didn’t even recognise my face. You cried when I picked you up. Anyway,” he rubbed his knees. “We had two choices. The infants could remain in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s care and be raised _en masse_ , or they could live their new lives as normally and healthily as we could hope for, given their origin. Fury made the decision not to distribute you to families who could be trusted with the full story, but to adopt you out to civilians who knew nothing. It was his way of keeping the situation classified – and of finding families who actually wanted children, not S.H.I.E.L.D. employees who felt obliged to take you. The exception was Steve, who was given to Maria so that when the time came for you to know the truth, it could come from someone whom one of you trusted. Obviously that measure backfired dramatically.”

He glanced down at his hands. “I tried to find a way to turn you back, I really did. I spent years searching the SHIELD archives for writing that matched the scraps on the side of the artefact. I gathered all the information we had on time disturbances and time travel and all the time-related shit we’d ever come across,” he let out a long breath. “But eventually I realised that turning you back into the people you used to be was essentially a death sentence to your new lives. Six families had new children they loved, and I – I couldn’t take that away, not for some possible issue of global security, certainly not for my own, selfish reasons. So I put the research aside and I moved on and I promised I’d protect the new Avengers better than I’d protected the old ones.” 

He raised his head. “That’s pretty much it. That’s where you came from. I know it’s not the birds and the bees, but, well. None of you were ever ordinary.”

Nobody spoke for a while. Pepper was watching them, biting her bottom lip. At last, Thor gave an enormous yawn.

“I think we’d better leave further questions to tomorrow,” Pepper stood up, smoothing out her skirt. “I’ll show you all to your rooms. Come on.”


	18. Epilogue / Steve

“So, I know what we’re going to do on our road trip,” said Tony, dropping down into the chair at the other end of the table. Steve looked up from the tablet where he was reading the morning news and also dropping toast crumbs all over the screen. Tony was smirking. This was usually a reliable warning sign.

“What road trip?” Steve narrowed his eyes.

“You know. Taking one of Pepper’s cars. Breaking out of Stark tower. Going on a trip. On the road.”

Steve let out a long breath. He had a lot of lung capacity these days, so it was a very long breath. Tony was still working on his lung capacity. The doctors had only yesterday given him the all-clear from his mild bout of pneumonia, three weeks after they had escaped the helicarrier. Apparently one day was plenty long enough for Tony to come up with stupid ideas.

“You know why we can’t leave the tower, Tony.”

“Know? Tell me why. Show me the evidence that S.H.I.E.L.D. is busting down the front door and sending ninja teams in through the windows to get us back,” Tony leaned forward on his elbows. “They don’t care, Steve. We’re boring now.”

“Bruce,” said Steve, returning his attention to the weather report. He’d been trying to keep up regular exercise and he’d like to do it in the sun today.

“Where?”

“No, Bruce,” Steve rolled his eyes at Tony. “Maybe Beemer is bored of us, but Bruce has… bigger problems.”

“Bruce has himself under control.”

“We’re not going on a road trip, Tony, and that’s the end of it. Even Natasha will back me up on this one,” Steve took a bite of certified-pure-manuka-honey on toast (everything in Stark tower was expensive, even the condiments) and went back to the weather.

“No, just listen, it’s amazing,” Tony was gesticulating. Steve could see it out of the corner of his eye. “I was talking to Coulson, see. About Thor and his,” Tony made a fart noise out of the corner of his mouth, “divine nature. I was like, magic, whatever, it doesn’t exist, it’s just science in a black box. I told him to get me something ‘magic’,” Tony air quoted, “and I’ll prove it. He says Thor, _our_ Thor, has this hammer. Yes, like the real Thor – well, the myth Thor – whatever. He has this hammer. It’s magic. It flies into his hand when he calls for it. It makes ethical judgements. It sounds like the sweetest piece of alien tech I’ve ever heard of. So I was all, where is it, and Coulson’s like, well no one except Thor was able to lift it so they had to leave it in Ohio.”

Steve’s head jerked up. “Our last mission.”

“Exactly,” Tony beamed like he’d just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. “We go to Ohio. We see where it all came to an end. And we find the hammer.”

“No,” Steve said, raising his finger. “No.”

“No what?” Natasha asked, appearing in the doorway in an absurdly provocative black, silk dressing gown. Although many of the clothes from their past lives had been found in storage and returned to them, she was the only one who fitted most of her wardrobe. Unfortunately most of her clothes were either designed for knife fights inside blazing infernos or were about sixteen years out of fashion. Meanwhile Steve, Thor and Clint had found the arms humiliatingly baggy – God, they must have had some _guns_ on them. Bruce’s clothes were about three sizes too big all round and Tony had been so distressed by his ill-fitting suits that he made Pepper get him a tailor. She had almost told him to adjust his own damn clothes, but they all knew she was still overindulging him like a prodigal son. 

“Road trip,” said Tony.

“No,” said Bruce, who arrived right behind Natasha. “You guys can go as wild as you like, I’m staying here with my meditation room and my new Enya collection.”

Clint and Thor appeared in the doorway and went straight to the kitchen. In total silence they started making themselves breakfast.

“Oh come on, Bruce, I’m sure the car’s got some good amps,” Tony whined. “We can’t go without you.”

“Where are we getting a car?” Natasha frowned, stuffing a handful of cocoa pops into her mouth.

“Pepper will give me one,” Tony said, and when Steve snorted he added sweetly, “If I ask nicely."

Clint and Thor sat down on either side of Steve and started eating, still in total silence. Steve looked between them. “What’s up with you two?”

“Nothing,” said Thor.

“Everything’s peachy,” said Clint blankly.

Steve sat up. “No, seriously.”

Clint leaned back to exchange some facial-only communication with Thor. From the corner of his eye, Steve didn’t think Thor was taking it well. Clint leaned forward again. “We broke Thor’s bed.”

Natasha spewed a mouthful of cocoa pops into her hand rather than choke from laughter. Tony’s eyes widened and he rested his chin on his hand, “Please, tell more.”

“It was just, like, two slats!” Thor cried.

“We were jumping on it,” Clint groaned, rubbing his eyes. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

"It was entirely Clint's fault," Thor growled. "He comes in and he's like, get out of bed, Thor, and I'm like, go fuck yourself, so then he starts jumping on me, so then I obviously I had to join in, or, like," he made a pained face, "the point is, he started it."

“You see,” Tony threw his hand out towards the two perpetrators. “You see what they get like when they’re cooped up? Next thing you know, they’ll be playing football in the lounge, someone will go through a window and bam, they’ll be dead. And it will be your fault for being such a rule-abiding fuddy-duddy,” he finished furiously, jabbing his finger at Steve.

“Thor, stop crying into your yoghurt,” Natasha ordered from across the room. “Just tell Coulson. He'll get the staff onto it and the bed will be fixed by tonight.”

“I feel bad using Coulson as our maid,” Thor ran his hands through his hair. “The man used to hunt aliens and supervillains until we got him fired, and now he’s basically our babysitter. Can you imagine anything worse?” he laced his hands behind his head and leaned back on his chair. “Maybe I’ll just move the mattress onto the floor.”

“On a related note-“ said Tony.

“I’m willing to bet it’s not,” Steve predicted.

“Shush. On a related note, I’ve been out of the doctor's clutches for an entire day and absolutely nobody has revealed to me the results of the most important question,” Tony lowered his voice. “Which of us was Coulson boning?”

“I thought it was Natasha?” Bruce said with a frown, coming to join them at the table.

“Yeah, I thought Natasha,” agreed Thor.

“Definitely me,” said Natasha, bringing the box of cocoa pops to the table and popping them into her mouth one by one. She looked out the corner of her narrowed eyes. “I bet I was into the ties.”

“No, no, I thought it was Steve,” said Tony, chewing on his thumbnail. “I mean, the guy’s a patriot from nose to knickers, and from what you’ve told me, you were basically America incarnate,” he waved his hand at Steve.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Tony, my bet was on Clint,” Steve grinned. For once he was pretty sure he had one up on Tony.

“What?” Natasha shot Clint a look and slapped the table in Steve’s direction. “Wait, wait, what do you know that we don’t? Clint? Why does Steve know before I do?”

Clint was looking down into his tinned apricots with a very disgruntled look on his face. “If I say I think it was me, can we stop talking about this?”

“Okay, he remembers, this just got super awkward,” Tony gasped, laying his hands flat on the table. “Why isn’t it on the memory board? Can we have details? You know, really detailed details?”

They had asked Pepper to get them a huge whiteboard to set up in the kitchen, with a different coloured pen for each of them, and were writing down all the things they remembered from their past lives. Mostly it was tiny titbits; a childhood toy, a nightmare filled with blood, a name with no context. Sometimes one scrap would trigger another flash in someone else, so that the board became filled with growing, multi-coloured networks of events and people they had shared in the past.

“I don’t remember,” Clint said quickly. “It was just something he said, when he was busting me out of prison. Well, it was the way he said it,” he wiped his mouth, “I thought he was a bad guy at first, but then he pulled off his mask and said ‘It’s Phil’. Somehow it was… too familiar. Different from how he behaves towards the rest of you. And there was the bow-”

“Yeah, the bow was what convinced me,” said Steve. “He said it was Clint’s. Why would he have it? It’s a deadly weapon that belonged to the guy he was supposed to be arresting. It's not like he could check it out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. armoury without raising some suspicion. After we got… after the last mission, I think they must have given it to him. Why? Because he was Clint's next of kin.”

“Anyway, I really don’t wanna make the guy uncomfortable, so can we just not fucking bring this up again?” Clint grumbled, going back to his breakfast.

“You know he doesn’t think of you that way,” Natasha said cynically.

“Yeah, you think Pepper goes around throwing out her vibrators ‘cos I’m back in town?” Tony spread his arms. “We’re not their long lost loves, Clint. We’re more like the dead lovers' illegitimate kids from a one night stand, who have suddenly turned up on their doorstep asking for money. And anyway, I don't know why you're embarrassed because I’d do Coulson right now if I could get the key to his star-spangled chastity belt. But I’m pretty sure his tie is sown shut to prevent any such transgressions.”

“Have some respect,” Natasha slapped him on the back of his head. “He saved your life.”

“Ow! Hello? Recovering from pneumonia? Fragile? Does this mean nothing to you people?”

“I made sure to avoid your lungs.”

“I meant my lust as a compliment,” Tony stuck his tongue out at her. “I bet Clint fell in love when he saw Coulson fighting aliens. With chainsaws. On the back of a speeding train."

Steve chuckled. "I'm going to draw a picture of this legendary event on the memory board."

“It’s not funny,” Clint growled, burying his head in his hands. “Don’t tell him you all know.”

“Steve, make sure you include the little hearts above Clint’s head,” Tony twiddled his finger in the air. He turned back to the table at large. “See, Thor, we're not treating Coulson like a maid, we have utmost respect for him," Not to be dissuaded, he dragged the conversation back where he wanted it. “Alright. So. This road trip.”

Clint raised his head. “How soon?”

“That’s two votes. Thor, buddy, you have a magic power tool lying somewhere outside of Cleveland and we are gonna go find it.”

Thor’s expression switched from dejected to eager so fast Steve was pretty sure he’d skipped a gear. “What kind of magic power tool?”

“Steve,” said Natasha, “Steve, you know you’re going to end up supervising. You know that, don’t you, Steve?”

“Don’t you dare-” Steve raised his hand and lunged across the table to try and cover her mouth.

“Oh shit, look, I’m signing up!” With a smile she dodged him, grabbing two of his fingers and bending them in some precise way that made pain shoot down his arm, and when he winced she put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry! Sorry! I swear I’m not doing these things on purpose-”

“Steve, you can’t go,” Bruce stabbed his finger down onto the table. “I am not going to be left here alone. I am _definitely_ not going to be left here alone with Pepper and Coulson’s rage. You know I have to come if you come. Bro, don’t do this to me.”

Tony overrode him. “Me, Nat, Clint and Thor. Alone. With a car. Searching for alien crash sites. In Ohio. Think about it, Steve. Think about the consequences of your actions,” Tony was grinning now, his arms folded. “You have a responsibility to uphold, Steve.”

Steve gasped in defeat and rested his forehead on the table, squashing his nose. “Alright. I’ll come.”

Bruce let out a low moan. Tony high-fived Natasha. Discussion burst out from all sides of the table. Supply routes, escape tactics, directions, intel on the mysterious hammer. Steve closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears so he didn’t have to hear the insurrectionary chatter.

But it wasn’t like he was ever going to leave them to their own devices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thank you everyone for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
